Context
I teach second grade in a K-3 building in northern Michigan. Gaylord, Michigan is a small town with a large at-risk population in our public school. In my building, 54% of the students qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. Decreasing funding and dwindling enrollment are beginning to take a significant financial toll on our district. Resources are very limited district-wide and many basic classroom supplies are purchased with my own money.
My classroom is equipped with furniture for 26 students. Any given year, I will have between 22 and 26 students in my class. My building is a predominantly Caucasian school with a very small minority population. Typically, I might have two or three speech and language disabled students, about the same number of students labeled with a learning disability or emotional impairment, and several students who are being treated for attention deficit disorders.
Based on the district’s financial profile, one would think that technology would be sorely lacking. While the technology that we have is aging, there is a surprising amount present. Each classroom is equipped with an overhead projector, a projector screen, and a document camera. Each teacher also has a desktop computer in the classroom. I feel fortunate to have three student computers in my classroom as well. In addition, the school has a computer lab with 30 desktop computers and a projector.
The biggest barrier to successfully integrating technology into our curriculum, other than the aging hardware, is the bandwidth of our district network. The infrastructure of the online network is old and outdated, making the Internet connection slow and sometimes unusable during peak times of the school day.
My classroom is equipped with furniture for 26 students. Any given year, I will have between 22 and 26 students in my class. My building is a predominantly Caucasian school with a very small minority population. Typically, I might have two or three speech and language disabled students, about the same number of students labeled with a learning disability or emotional impairment, and several students who are being treated for attention deficit disorders.
Based on the district’s financial profile, one would think that technology would be sorely lacking. While the technology that we have is aging, there is a surprising amount present. Each classroom is equipped with an overhead projector, a projector screen, and a document camera. Each teacher also has a desktop computer in the classroom. I feel fortunate to have three student computers in my classroom as well. In addition, the school has a computer lab with 30 desktop computers and a projector.
The biggest barrier to successfully integrating technology into our curriculum, other than the aging hardware, is the bandwidth of our district network. The infrastructure of the online network is old and outdated, making the Internet connection slow and sometimes unusable during peak times of the school day.
Content
In the area of reading fluency, students need to learn to:
Typical problems students may have in acquiring reading fluency (what a non-fluent reader looks like):
Fluency is defined as the ability to read with appropriate speed, accuracy, and prosody. In 2008, the National Institute for Literacy said (in the report from The National Early Literacy Panel) that “fluency provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.” This statement expresses the very essence of just why fluency is so important. Without it, reading loses meaning. After all, why do we read other than to gain meaning? When students devote so much energy to decoding words, comprehension suffers. Our ultimate goal for young readers is that they are able to understand, learn, and gain meaning from what they read. When this skill is absent, all reading and learning activities will suffer.
Technology
The technology best suited to help students become fluent readers is a class set of laptops, which are equipped with webcams and microphones. Headphones are also necessary so that students can move forward at their own pace in their fluency practice. A mobile cart for storage and easy transport would also be ideal for sharing the technology with other classrooms. Below are a few options I have researched:
- Understand what fluency means and why it is important
- Recognize fluent reading when they hear it
- Evaluate the fluency of their own reading
- Be able to read an appropriate leveled text with fluency (adequate accuracy, rate, and prosody)
Typical problems students may have in acquiring reading fluency (what a non-fluent reader looks like):
- Below grade level results on fluency assessments
- Frustration when reading aloud, either because of speed or accuracy
- Lack of expression when reading aloud
- No "chunking" of words into meaningful units
- No pausing at meaningful breaks within sentences or paragraphs
Fluency is defined as the ability to read with appropriate speed, accuracy, and prosody. In 2008, the National Institute for Literacy said (in the report from The National Early Literacy Panel) that “fluency provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.” This statement expresses the very essence of just why fluency is so important. Without it, reading loses meaning. After all, why do we read other than to gain meaning? When students devote so much energy to decoding words, comprehension suffers. Our ultimate goal for young readers is that they are able to understand, learn, and gain meaning from what they read. When this skill is absent, all reading and learning activities will suffer.
Technology
The technology best suited to help students become fluent readers is a class set of laptops, which are equipped with webcams and microphones. Headphones are also necessary so that students can move forward at their own pace in their fluency practice. A mobile cart for storage and easy transport would also be ideal for sharing the technology with other classrooms. Below are a few options I have researched:
- Acer TravelMate – Essential Notebook – Model TM5744-6467 – Education pricing is available from Acer.
- Califone Personal Stereo Headphones – lightweight headphones with a 6-foot cord. About $6 each
- ACP Direct Laptop Storage Cart – Holds and charges 30 laptops. Education pricing at $1629.
Pedagogy
Laptops are an excellent resource in the teaching and practicing of reading fluency. Of course, the educational possibilities are endless and span the entire curriculum when a classroom has a laptop for each student. However, if we consider only the effects of this technology on fluency instruction, the benefit is still clear.
The steps in developing a fluency program in the classroom are as follows:
Teachers provide a model of fluent reading on a daily basis. However, it is most helpful if a student hears a fluent reading model of the very passage that he or she will be practicing. Individual laptops can provide this through various methods. There are abundant sources of fluency passages on the Internet. Teachers can assign an appropriate passage to students and then students can hear that passage read to them. They can then practice using the fluent reading as a model.
According to the National Reading Panel, “repeated reading procedures that offer guidance and feedback are effective for improving word recognition, fluency, comprehension, and overall reading achievement through grade 5.” The repeated reading approach has been studied and researched and has been found to be extremely important in the acquisition of reading fluency. There are many ways to incorporate repeated reading in the classroom. Some of the possibilities, along with how laptops can enhance and transform the experience, are listed below:
The steps in developing a fluency program in the classroom are as follows:
- Measure students’ fluency
- Set fluency goals for individual students
- Select appropriate texts for fluency-building instruction
- Model fluent reading
- Provide repeated reading opportunities with feedback
- Monitor student progress
Teachers provide a model of fluent reading on a daily basis. However, it is most helpful if a student hears a fluent reading model of the very passage that he or she will be practicing. Individual laptops can provide this through various methods. There are abundant sources of fluency passages on the Internet. Teachers can assign an appropriate passage to students and then students can hear that passage read to them. They can then practice using the fluent reading as a model.
According to the National Reading Panel, “repeated reading procedures that offer guidance and feedback are effective for improving word recognition, fluency, comprehension, and overall reading achievement through grade 5.” The repeated reading approach has been studied and researched and has been found to be extremely important in the acquisition of reading fluency. There are many ways to incorporate repeated reading in the classroom. Some of the possibilities, along with how laptops can enhance and transform the experience, are listed below:
- Partner Reading – two students using one laptop can practice a fluency passage. The speakers and/or headphones will provide a fluent model of the passages they are practicing. Students can practice together reading in unison, or they can take turns repeating the same passage. This will allow each student to assess the fluency of himself or herself as well as that of another student. Students can help each other with decoding words when needed, offer support and encouragement, and check for understanding.
- Reader’s Theater – small groups of students rehearse and read a play. Readinga-z.com has many reader’s theater scripts. With a subscription, teachers can download scripts. Many have a projectable version, which allows for modifications to the text such as highlighting, framing, changing text color, and making notes with a pen. If each student has an individual laptop, he or she can load the projectable version and highlight or change the text color of his or her part of the script, making it easier to keep track of lines.
- Timed Repeated Reading – a program such as the Read Naturally program times students for one minute as they read a passage. With practice, students read faster each time they repeat the passage. When using other fluency passages, students can time themselves, either alone or with a partner. Repeated readings should become faster each time. Students can use a handheld timer, or they can use Online Stopwatch to time themselves on the computer.
- Choral Reading – groups of students read together. This can be done in much the same way as partner reading with a group of students instead of just two.
- Recorded Repeated Reading – any of the above methods (especially Timed Repeated Reading and Partner Reading) can be used while recording the students. There are several options for doing this. Programs like Audacity or Garage Band will allow students to record their reading and save it to the computer so that the teacher can listen to it later for formal or informal assessment purposes. Students can also be taught to use programs like Jing or Screencast to record their reading passage. The students can go back and listen to their own recordings to get a better sense of what their oral reading sounds like to others. This will help them to self-assess and to better recognize fluent reading when they hear it.
The Total PACKage
We think of reading as absolutely fundamental to success in school and in life. Of course, it is. However, in order to fully appreciate its importance and necessity, we can analyze the integration of technology into reading fluency instruction using Dewey’s primary impulses for learning.
Classroom Practices to Consider
Since I am working with very young students (7 – 8 year old children), much training, teaching, and reviewing will have to go into establishing this program. Starting at the very basic level, students must understand how to turn on the laptop, where to plug in the headphones, and how to access the Internet. They must also be taught expectations for using and caring for the hardware. Many students may already know this from their computer instruction in kindergarten and first grade or from their exposure to technology at home. Once these practices are learned, students will be shown where to find the websites on which they can access fluency passages. These websites can be saved in a folder that I can create on the desktop of each machine. The students are very accustomed to accessing websites in this way at my school. The mechanics of each website will need to be modeled and practiced before the students are independent with this skill.
For using a program like Audacity, I will model the process many times to the whole class, and then individually as I help each student with his or her first few recordings.
Websites for Fluency Passages:
readinga-z.com
freereading.net
teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/Hultenius/fluency.cfm
readingresource.net
readnaturally.com
Transformational Technology Examples
1. Using a recording program like Audacity or Garage Band (Mac) will allow students to record their own reading, assess it for fluency, and use it to practice fluent reading. The recordings can also be saved so that teachers can use them for progress monitoring and assessment purposes.
2. Webcams can also be used to record students reading. Students can watch the video of their reading and identify mistakes that they have made. There are tremendous possibilities for learning here. Students can make podcasts and edit them after they have identified problem areas. Connecting to another class from another school, or even in the same school, gives students an authentic audience for their readings and will motivate them to make it as fluent as possible and as easily understood as possible.
- Inquiry: Children are naturally curious and interested in finding things out. Students love being read to and benefit from hearing fluent reading. In this way, being able to listen to a fluent reader reading a passage that they will soon read themselves satisfies the wish to know what that passage sounds like when someone else reads it. Students will also grow and improve by listening to their own reading. Perhaps they have wondered what they sound like when reading aloud, or have wondered how they sound compared to their peers.
- Construction: A child’s need to make things can be satisfied by creating his or her own recordings of fluency passages. Using Reader’s Theater scripts also allows students to produce an entertaining show for themselves and others to enjoy.
- Communication: “The language instinct is the simplest form of the social expression of the child. Hence, it is a great, perhaps the greatest of all, educational resources.” (Dewey, Bruce, & Levin, 2011). As has been mentioned previously, reading is essential to communication and success in life. Therefore, learning to read fluently is an important skill for all to develop. Technology enhances this by providing many resources and methods for students to achieve this.
- Expression: When students are confident of their reading skills, they contribute more to class discussions, volunteer to read aloud, and feel more able to help peers. All of this contributes to the sense of community and the positive learning environment in the classroom.
Classroom Practices to Consider
Since I am working with very young students (7 – 8 year old children), much training, teaching, and reviewing will have to go into establishing this program. Starting at the very basic level, students must understand how to turn on the laptop, where to plug in the headphones, and how to access the Internet. They must also be taught expectations for using and caring for the hardware. Many students may already know this from their computer instruction in kindergarten and first grade or from their exposure to technology at home. Once these practices are learned, students will be shown where to find the websites on which they can access fluency passages. These websites can be saved in a folder that I can create on the desktop of each machine. The students are very accustomed to accessing websites in this way at my school. The mechanics of each website will need to be modeled and practiced before the students are independent with this skill.
For using a program like Audacity, I will model the process many times to the whole class, and then individually as I help each student with his or her first few recordings.
Websites for Fluency Passages:
readinga-z.com
freereading.net
teachersites.schoolworld.com/webpages/Hultenius/fluency.cfm
readingresource.net
readnaturally.com
Transformational Technology Examples
1. Using a recording program like Audacity or Garage Band (Mac) will allow students to record their own reading, assess it for fluency, and use it to practice fluent reading. The recordings can also be saved so that teachers can use them for progress monitoring and assessment purposes.
2. Webcams can also be used to record students reading. Students can watch the video of their reading and identify mistakes that they have made. There are tremendous possibilities for learning here. Students can make podcasts and edit them after they have identified problem areas. Connecting to another class from another school, or even in the same school, gives students an authentic audience for their readings and will motivate them to make it as fluent as possible and as easily understood as possible.