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.

Zoom in on Reading

If teaching reading for reading’s sake isn’t paying off with literate students who are exciting about language, Curriculum Associates’s ZOOM IN takes a different approach. By emphasizing real-world reading, ZOOM IN works with children who are at levels 1 through 8 with titles like “Cause and Effect” and “Understanding Sequence.” The 48-book series is arranged in 6 titles at 8 reading levels that emphasize different real life reading strategies and includes guided practice, vocabulary instruction and preparing for tests. The series will be ready in September, with student books priced at $34.95 each in a 5-pack or $20.90 each in a 10-pack; teacher editions sell for $25.

Teacher Picks: Our Reviewer Tests Siboney Learning Group, Spelling Buzz

Diana Lawsky gives us her review of Siboney Learning Group's Spelling Buzz.

Description: Reviews the foundation of classroom instruction in spelling rules and is tied into each specific state’s curriculum standards.

Pros: It has a very bright and lively interface and the sound quality was excellent as well.  A bee called Buzz introduces each activity.  There is a program for grades K-3 and another for grades 4-6.  When using the product for K, 10 words with the short a sound were introduced.  A voice read the word, used it in a sentence, spelled the word, and read the word again.  In another exercise the student has to type the word that is spoken.  If she doesn’t do it correctly, she can press a hint button that uses the word in a sentence. If she gets it wrong a second time, the first letter of the word is filled in.  The third time wrong the word is put up on the screen and a voice reads each letter in the word.  This would help minimize frustration.  I really liked the worksheet generator.  The teacher can create worksheets on exactly whatever spelling rule the students need to practice.  Another activity lets students uncover a picture by spelling words correctly.  This is a really fun way to practice and learn an often boring subject.

Cons: None.

How would this product be useful in the classroom? This would be a great complement to classroom instruction.  Whenever the students are studying spelling, they can practice with this program.  It could be used as reinforcement whenever a student had free time. 

Price: Single license, $69.95.

Teacher Picks: Our Reviewer Tests FLRT – a fluent reading trainer by MindPlay

Our teacher-reviewer Diana Lawsky of Lincoln School in North Bergen, NJ, gives us her review of MindPlay’s FLRT. See more teacher picks on our Instructor website.

Description: An online program designed to help students in grades K-12 read more fluently.

Pros: The word match looks very useful. The student hears a word spoken and has to click on that word on a screen with a bunch of different words. This is great practice for word recognition, using sight and sound. The eye tracking feature is excellent. It asks a student to follow a shape and tell how many times she sees it. It reinforces the proper way to read--left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The single line activity had the student watch a story line by line.  But each word in the line was only visible for a few seconds. This forces the student to read quickly. The multi-line feature uses the same idea, but a few paragraphs are put up on the screen and each word, from the top down, disappears after a few seconds. After these last 2 activities the student has to answer comprehension questions about the stories. All the activities build fluency.

Cons: None.

How would you use this in the classroom? This would be a great product for reading reinforcement.  I would use it during a guided reading session.  I’d have the students who are not working with me practice with the fluent reader on the computer.

Library Management System Lets Students be the Reviewer

Trying to get those library books off the shelves? Help your librarians get their kids reading by asking them what they think. Students are for more likely to check out a book recommended by their peers so the latest Follett Destiny Release lets kids rate their favorite reads using a five-star rating that includes a text review of the book that other users can read. The new release also features a Visual OPAC that lets students display larger text, simpler icons, and book cover images. The enhanced graphic search is designed to appeal to elementary-level students or emerging readers. The program even helps students who may have misspelled a search term by showing a “Did you mean?” prompt that gives up to five alternate term suggestions.
Bottom Line: “The ability to show the top 10 readers and classrooms is awesome,” said Paula Yohe, director of technology/library media center for Dillon School District Two in Dillon, S.C., one of the first districts to use Destiny 8.0. “The ability to promote top readers and top homerooms really helps to motivate students to read.” She thinks the student rating/review function is “just so cool. Letting kids see peer recommendations on books is just so meaningful to them. And for kids to be able to share their own ratings and reviews is great for their self-esteem.”

CTB/McGRAW-Hill Updates Writing Roadmap

Administrators know how difficult it is to automatically score essays. How can you measure all the nuance? Schools have had success scoring essays with CTB/McGraw-Hill’s Writing Roadmap, an online essay assessment system that uses artificial intelligence to assess the writing skills of students in Grades 3-12, and now the program adds some new administrative feature to manage the program. The lockdown student browser lets teachers choose to have students respond in a secure setting that locks students in the program once they log in and disables access to other applications on their computer. “Asterisk” technology automatically flags certain scores that might benefit from teacher review. Sixteen new writing prompts cover four styles – Narrative, Informative/Expository, Descriptive, and Persuasive. An improved scoring algorithm uses 4, 5, and 6-point rubric scales that meet psychometric standards for classroom assessments.
Bottom Line: Writing Roadmap covers a range of essay styles with 66 classroom writing prompts, 10 training prompts,  and the ability for teachers to craft custom essay topics.

New Curriculum Teaches the Meaning of Words

Looking for a good resource to teach students the meaning in words? Foundations is a new program from Dynamic Literacy that teaches “morphology,” or the meaning of words. Just as phonics helps students “sound out” unfamiliar words, a mastery of Morphics helps a student “mean out” unfamiliar words. 
Grade Level: 3-5, but available for intervention in grades 6 and higher
Bottom line: This curriculum teaches students how English words are constructed by focusing on the meanings of prefixes, roots and suffixes, also known as morphemes. Once students learn the definitions of common morphemes, they gain the skills to decipher thousands of unfamiliar words, and their vocabularies increase exponentially.
Prices start at $9.95, with volume discounts to $5.95 for individual student activity books, plus $99 per teacher for software and instructional materials.

New Reading Curriculum for Students with Significant Disabilities

The Start-to-Finish Literacy Starters is an interesting new reading curriculum that combines the efforts of Don Johnston, AbleNet, and the Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies. The AbleNet MEville to WEville program uses activities like art projects, writing activities, and games to build a classroom community. The Start-to-Finish Literacy Starters blends this MEville to WEville program with Don Johnston’s Start-to-Finish Literacy Starters paperback, computer, and audio books. This result is a unique curriculum specifically for students with moderate to severe/profound intellectual disabilities.

Program Helps Students Read Faster

Research shows that faster readers are better readers, so MindPlay has introduced FLRT – a fluent reading trainer designed to increase reading speed, improve fluency, enhance visual memory, and build silent reading skills and comprehension. Students read stories which the teacher either hand-selects by category or presents at random. Accompanying questions test comprehension. Single line reading improves eye-tracking and reading speed. Multi-line activity translates newly acquired reading speed to a full page of text. The program lets students read at their own pace by providing assignments that are individualized to match each student’s unique abilities.

Leapfrog Blends Fly and Leappad in New Handheld Tool

The new Tag School Reader from Leapfrog debuted at FETC, and it is a very cool little device. Kids log into this pen-like device and simply scan the tip over text in a series of Tag Readers to hear the words read aloud. The Tag Reader library will include popular storybooks, kids’ classics, and transition readers, including high-interest titles like Miss Spider’s Tea Party, Cars, Spongebob, and I Spy. Thanks to a high-tech pattern printing using Composer software, the pen automatically recognizes each new Tag title simply by scanning the pages. Another perk: all reading activity is automatically logged into a management system that evaluates things like time on task and which words students scanned repeatedly. Pricing is expected to be about $500 for a center pack (includes 8 readers and software); $1300 for classroom kit (includes 24 readers and software). A consumer version will release this spring; the education version of Tag starts shipping in August.

New Edition of Voyager Passport Reading Intervention Program [FETC HIGHLIGHT]

The latest release of Voyager Passport Reading Intervention Program -- the company's reading intervention program for K-5 students -- adds a reading technology component called Ticket to Read, a website  designed to increase reading speed, comprehension and vocabulary through a reward system that promotes reading practice.  Students read high-interest passages at increasing levels of difficulty and take passage quizzes to demonstrate they understood what they read -- all while earning points to use in customizing their personal clubhouse.

Download Audio/eBooks to Any Format

Just about every kid at your school has some kind of digital gadget, right? Wouldn’t it be nice to get them to read something more than "TLK2UL8R?" OverDrive School Download Library lets students deliver audio books and eBooks from your school’s website to just about any device: PDAs, SmartPhones, CD and MP3 players. Students install free software on their computers, browse a secure Web site for titles, check out their selections with an existing library card (or other ID), then download audio books and eBooks. The library looks like a good, varied selection of titles and interest levels. See website for details.