Lately I’ve been trying out some ways to integrate technology into my small group Guided Reading session. I’ve been trying these things in the 15 minutes or so we often have spare after reading a book. Most of these involve an IWB although you could use a classroom computer. Here are some ideas….
VOICE RECORDINGS (using a microphone and Windows voice recorder or a program like Audacity)
- have a different student from the group summarise the beginning, middle and end of the text.
- have each student find an interesting new word from the story and find out the meaning. Make a voice recording explaining the meaning of the word.
- have each student chose a character from the story and record a short oral review describing them and their role in the story.
FILMING (using a Flip video camera, webcam or standard video camera)
- each child practices reading a page of the story with fluency and expression. Film and review attempts until the child thinks they are reading very fluently and expressively.
- create a summary of the story from one character’s perspective. Film a student retelling the summary as if they are the character.
BRAINSTORMING ON THE IWB (create a brainstorm on a flipchart on the IWB)
- find all the words that end in ed, ing, s, er, tion etc
- find all the words with a certain sound (eg sh, ch, th, oo, er etc)
- find all the words with 3/4/5/6 letters or syllables
- find all the words beginning with a capital letter (sort them into start of sentence/name of person/name of place etc)
- find all the contractions in the story and write what the contraction is short for (eg don’t = do not)
USING ONLINE APPLICATIONS
- create a comic strip representing the story as a group with the free website ToonDoo.
- have the group summarise the story and have an avatar (Internet character) “read” the summary the group has written on the website Read the Words. The kids love choosing avatars and accents!
- Use Read the Words to demonstrate fluency by altering the speed at which the avatar reads the text you insert.
- Create a flowchart of the events of the story on Lovely Charts; a simple drag and drop online diagramming application.
- Create a poster about the story that mixes graphics, photos, videos, music and text using the online application Glogster.
to be continued….