Reading Help Via the Mac

While most schools have standardized on PCs, there are a lot of Macs out there in classrooms, and they can help kids master fluent reading with Texthelp Systems’ Read&Write 3 Gold for Mac. This program focuses on helping struggling readers to read regardless of whether they’re using Word, Safari, or the Adobe Reader. The key is that the program’s floating tool bar is always there and gives students access to a variety of reading support techniques. The program can read any passage in a variety of voices, present the student with a graphic organizer or translate any passage for English as second language learners. A single copy of Read&Write costs $645 and schools can set up a license $4,990 per building.

 

60 Powerful Seconds

Getting early readers to practice their new craft is often one of the most difficult things that an elementary school teacher has to do, so a reading program that doles out small, pithy selections is a great idea. Called One Minute Reader, the program was created by Read Naturally for home schoolers, but it can be an effective tool in the classroom. The program seeks to improve comprehension, vocabulary and especially fluency while boosting confidence with age appropriate short reading selections. Each story has comprehension questions to help reinforce the skills learned and students or teachers are encouraged to graph the results. The starter kit comes with everything needed to get going, including an instructional DVD that explains how One Minute Read works, a book with five illustrated stories and a companion audio CD, a timer and a red/blue graphing pencil; it all fits into a handy storage album. There are packets for E through Level 5 readers, each of which costs $250.

Instant EBooks

Forget about dedicated eBook readers, like Amazon's Kindle, and printed material may be on the way out with Nintendo saying that in early 2009 it will add a digital book reader software to its DS portable game machine. It’s a sure bet that most kids in just about any class has played with a DS in the previous week, so adding books to its repertoire is a big deal for education. On top of adding new volumes via WiFi, the DS eBook reader will come with a bunch of classic works. The software will be able to search for words or phrases, add bookmarks and zoom in and out of the text. Now, what’s really needed is software to turn the hundreds of standard documents, like worksheets, into eBook files so that a curriculum can be built around the DS and other eBooks.

Another A+?

Following American Education Corporation’s A+ series of classroom programs, the company is adding a pair of early reader programs. Called Storybook Phonics I and II, the new titles are a narrative-based approach to helping kids read fluently. Aimed at K-through-2nd grade and 1st-through-2nd grade students, each series has 15 stories for the teacher and student to work with. Each passage can be read for the students while the words are highlighted on the screen. For the kids, there are also games, study guides, tests and essays. AEC offers a complete curriculum planning manual with the product for teachers.

Early Start

Along with Time4Learning’s online lessons, developmental games and quizzes for middle- and high school kids, the company has just added an early elementary school section for the youngest learners. The lessons are simple, self-contained and structured for pre-schoolers through third graders. Kids can set their own pace, but these bite sized lessons are surprisingly complete and range from “Comma Confusion” to a biography of the Wright Brothers. The content is supplied by CompassLearning’s Odyssey. There’s an online trial, but you’ll need the latest Flash movie player installed.

Practice Makes Perfect

Ever want to drill students in the basics before letting them go on to the harder stuff, but didn’t have a precise enough tool to do it? After all, Sally might have mastered addition and is ready to get to work on subtraction while Johnny might need some extra practice before proceeding. Whoosh’s online classroom  can help by emphasizing the foundations of modern education while testing kids in both accuracy and speed.

This new online classroom was designed by Dr. Molly Keogh, a veteran teacher to emphasize differentiated instruction where each child progresses at his or her own natural pace. Aimed at K-through-6th grade students, Whoosh starts with a two-to-three minute evaluation test to get an idea of the child’s strengths and weaknesses. Then the program works with auditory, visual and tactile cues to teach, refresh and practice either math or spelling at their level.

There are tons of printable worksheets to further reinforce the material. This is followed by an exam that requires getting a perfect score in the time allotted to move on to the next level. When students achieve this level of proficiency, they get a satisfying “whoosh” sound.

At the moment, Whoosh works with math and spelling, but the company is working on additional curriculum, such as science, social studies and Spanish. There are six levels of math available and teachers can add their own spelling words to the lists that the system works. At any time, teachers can create any of 20 reports to track individual students or an entire class. The system is Web-based so it works on any connected computer with a recent Web browser, even inexpensive Linux systems. Whoosh costs $20 a student per month, but the second child adds $5 a month and a two-week trial is available. 

Speeding up Young Readers

How about instead of telling poor readers to slow down, tell them to read faster? I know it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but RocketReader Speed Reading 8 is a proven plan for speeding up reading speed and comprehension for both lagging and leading readers. The program uses artificial intelligence techniques to eliminate the bad habits that slow kids down while building vocabulary and reading speed. There are lesson plans, more than 500 reading selections with comprehension quizzes as well as preparation for SAT tests. A single use license costs $129 although a school can reduce that to $20 for 50 students. A district or large school can get the program for 2,000 students as low as $6 per student. Reading Rocket works with PCs, Macs and Linux computers and a 10 day free trial is available.

Read More for Less

One of my favorite programs for teaching reading is the online FreeReading.net system. Based on open-source software its 300 lessons are aimed at the K-to-3 crowd and free for any teacher or tutor to use. The online curriculum is organized in 40-week sequences with lessons that range from comprehension to phonics. The best part is that each activity has four levels of proficiency (introduction, reintroduction, building accuracy and building fluency), so it not only fits into full classroom work, but individual catch-up or enrichment lessons as well.

Read to the Web

A highlight at NECC today was AutoSkill International’s announcement of its Academy of Reading package. Based on Response to Intervention research the academy can help raise proficiency levels by assessing children on oral fluency over the Web and then designing a custom program for each. The program was tested and is being used at Houston, Texas’s Spring Independent School District. 

Instant Feedback with Hot Dots

Nothing compares to instant feedback and positive reinforcement when teaching reading to kids, and ETA Cuisenaire’s Power Pen can tell them when they’re right or wrong. After reading a book, students answer questions on Charging Up cards by taping answers with the Hot Dot pen. Each card quizzes kids on the content of the reading passage and the pen records right and wrong answers, while letting the kids know how they did. There are Charging Up kits for third, fourth and fifth grade classrooms that cost $300 each. The sets include 24 books, three groups of 24 Study Strategy Cards and 8 Hot Dots Power Pens; additional pens cost $10 each.