Blog Post 2

Blog Post 2: Handheld Devices

In the article, Rekindle the Love of Reading (Isero, 2014), the author explains his initiative of providing Kindle electronic readers to his ninth grade students to motivate them to read more. In this professional article, Mark Isero describes his grass roots efforts and how even his most reluctant students reported liking reading on the Kindle much more than a traditional book. Although not a scientific study, one significant fact according to the author was that his “Kindlers” read more than their peers with physical books and increased their reading level by almost two grade levels. One of the reasons given for this increase was the Kindle classroom project met the needs of struggling readers with the features of the Kindle itself. The Kindle electronic reader has built-in features which my double as academic accommodations such as being able to highlight, change the text size, incorporated dictionary, and in some cases, the Kindle offers text to speech. Students in the article found these features to be helpful and increased the fun of.

Another key point in the article was how the students took care of the classroom Kindles. The author reported that the students began to take ownership of the Kindles and took care to keep them in the cases and not jostle them in backpacks where they may become broken. While the Kindles are fairly durable, it is imperative that care is taken when the Kindles are being used in education because of the replacement time and cost.

One final important point the article made was the bonus of being able to read the same titles at the same time on up to six Kindle devices for one purchase. With Amazon’s sharing capability, one purchased electronic book may be shared on up to six devices, thus enabling the teacher’s budget or school budget to stretch further. Having a ready-made small group of Kindles, opens the students up to informal book discussions with each other or the teacher in a more formal setting. The social aspect of reading is appealing to many teens and is more enjoyable when reading takes on a more social role in school.

            After reading this professional article, I have many ideas as to how to implement the use of Kindles in the elementary library setting. After determining an overall budget, I would decide how many Kindles to purchase and what titles would be best utilized as an electronic book. I feel as though a numbering system would be most effective in keeping track of which Kindle has which title. Checking out a Kindle would have the same process as checking out a regular library book with the exception of a parent permission slip that must be signed prior to checking out a Kindle. The Kindle has many features that lend itself very well to elementary reading. Noting that not all types of Kindles have the same specifications, there are many features that would work well in education. The text to speech feature allows the user to listen to the text as it is read aloud for the reader. The Kindle also has a built in dictionary allowing the user to look up word definition with in the text just by hovering the cursor over the word. This would benefit readers of all levels who most often will not stop to look up the meaning of an unknown word. There are, of course, many other features, but using Kindles in the elementary library would allow struggling readers the anonymity of off level reading material. Students get the chance to use a device that looks like everyone else, so no one has to know that the book they are reading happens to be below grade level.

References:

Features available in Kindle books. (2016). Retrieved from

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I15SB16/ref=topnav_storetab_kstore

Isero, M. (2014). Rekindle the love of reading. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(7), 61-64.

doi:10.1177/003172171409500714