Five Reasons Readers Need Technology

This author of this article, argues that the latest technology could be "our best hope for struggling readers".  We all know that being a literate person allows one to climb out of poverty, be a productive citizen and to secure a job.  Helping struggling readers to catch up with the others in his/her class, is one of the biggest challenges educators face.  (This was brought up in class last week-how can Alex teach in his content area of social studies AND try to teach remedial reading at the same time??  Like he said, he wasn't trained to do that!)

Of course, it depends what the students need is-phonic instruction?  Comprehension? Fluency?  What about students who speak little English?  What can a teacher do?

This article mentions that students are unable to learn from textbooks assigned to them in the classroom.    The author lists five ways that technology can help struggling readers:

1. Tech is adaptive-using software that is constantly assessing students as they learn.  Adaptive tech. knows to give a version of an article to that student as his/her reading level

2. Tech. is good at repetitive practice-it can figure out what skill a student is struggling with and figure out the right kind of practice

3. Tech. is availabe anytime/anywhere

4. Tech is superb at gathering and processing data-assess a students skill set, organize data, and deliver customized data to teachers

5. Tech. is motiviating-by showing progress and demonstrate improvements, even in small increments

At Goodfield and Congerville elmentary schools, we started using a program called RAZ kids with the 1st and 2nd graders this school year.  It has them first listen to a story at their level-the text is also highlighted as it is read to them. Then, they have to read the story, and finally answer questions about the story.  If they do well, they earn "stars".  After earning so many stars, they can start to "buy" things-like robots, rocket ships etc.  They love that part!  Its tailored just to their needs and so far, they like it!  I do know, with anything, students can become bored of doing the same things over and over again.  I have seen this with students who use the other programs like Lexia (for younger students-the focus is on phonics/phonemic awareness skills) and Reading Plus (for fluency and comprehension).  Teachers have to keep it "fresh" and mix it up!  I use these tech. programs, but still model and give opportunities for students to "show" me these reading strategies as well using actual books!  (Esp. using books they enjoy-I see what they check out in the library and try to find books similar to those to use in our reading groups)  They enjoy that as well.