March+8

Digital Readers: The Next Chapter in E-Book Reading and Response

E-books are starting to become a bigger topic in education after recent studies show that e-book reading may help with comprehension and help strengthen responses that are aesthetic and efferent. The International Reading Association in 2009 even emphasized the importance of integrating communication technologies into literacy programs. The article talks about how e-books have the advantage of distracting students from thinking about the fact that they are actually reading, which causes them to focus more on making sense of the story. It also goes on to say that e-books appear to increase students' motivation after they interact with them. The article also goes on to talk about Mrs. Miles and her second grade classroom. It talks about how Mrs. Miles is an advocate of integrated technology and that she encourages her students to read online texts, blog about their reading experiences, and engage in online literature discussions. It goes on to talk about how Mrs. Miles uses her LCD projector to display the computer screen during class instructions to help students who are more visual. The article also talks about how her students read and respond frequently about books that they have read in class on their class blog. Mrs. Miles even used her LCD projector to model the basic functions of the Kindle that she was going to start using in class. She went through how to turn it on and off, change the font size, and use the dictionary, and insert notes. In the class she had two students named Amy and Winnie use the Kindle to read and respond to the text. The girls used the Kindle for 40 minutes daily for three weeks to read //Friendship According to Humphrey//. The girls changed the font size, listened to parts of the story by using the text-to-speech feature, highlighted important passages or vocabulary, and used the dictionary that was built into the program. They even added notes to the texts. These features allowed the students to be engaged with the text but it also allowed them to interact with the text and manipulated it in many ways to help them understand the material more. The students had five types of response categories they used when working with the iPad; understanding of the story, personal meaning making, questioning, answering, evaluating the text. These digital notes really helped Mrs. Miles gain insight on each child's reading behavior and comprehension skills. Amy was a student who was ok at reading but really struggled sometimes but with the help of the Kindle and its tools Amy got the support she needed. The Kindle helped her to independently decode unfamiliar words with the built in dictionary. Winnie was a good reader but the Kindle helped to show Mrs. Miles through Winnie's notes that she interacted deeply with the text and showed that Winnie had a sense of humor. When asked Winnie and Amy said that they liked reading from the Kindle more than a regular book because it gave them a cool factor and was also more convenient with all of its tools. Amy who had a little bit of trouble reading said that she started to really like reading on the Kindle and that it gave her more self-confidence when reading. Winnie who really liked reading said she liked the Kindle because she could take notes on it, which led to her being able to express herself more to Mrs. Miles. All in all the students had a very positive experience with the Kindle. This article also showed how digital readers are great for increasing focus on the student's individual learning process and how it provided a lot of support to students.

Larson, Lotta C. "Digital Readers: The Next Chapter in E-Book Reading and Response." //The Reading Teacher, 64// (2010): 15-22. Web.