After a period of considering and testing several other portable reading platforms, I ended up exactly where I had originally planned when applying for a grant to fund eReaders for my young readers. After buying and trying the Nook, the result is we've become a Kindle-toting classroom.
After the perfunctory introduction to all the little buttons and tasks a Kindle can perform, the students have settled into reading from them as they would any other print -albeit with a few positive wrinkles.
After the perfunctory introduction to all the little buttons and tasks a Kindle can perform, the students have settled into reading from them as they would any other print -albeit with a few positive wrinkles.
* We all have a voice: Kindles offer a voice-assisted reading program, which when activated translates displayed text into audio. Several students make regular use of this feature and appear to enjoy it. Personally, I find the computer-assisted reading feature off-putting, but that's me.
* Swiss-knife eReading: Many students have been interacting well with their Kindles by making use of the ever-present dictionary. When they discover a word that confuses them during read, they can move a cursor to a spot just before the word and then glance to the bottom of the viewing window. There they will find a suggested word meaning in a slim pop-up window. This is one of the least intrusive ways I've seen for learning about challenging word and I like it a lot. The Kindle is like a Swiss-knife reading unit in this way because it has all you need, and more, packed into a portable package.
* Swiss-knife eReading: Many students have been interacting well with their Kindles by making use of the ever-present dictionary. When they discover a word that confuses them during read, they can move a cursor to a spot just before the word and then glance to the bottom of the viewing window. There they will find a suggested word meaning in a slim pop-up window. This is one of the least intrusive ways I've seen for learning about challenging word and I like it a lot. The Kindle is like a Swiss-knife reading unit in this way because it has all you need, and more, packed into a portable package.
* Chocolate Sampler: The students have explored almost 25 books in only a few classes using their Kindles. The ability to download a sample for almost any new book has been awesome, because while my room is filled with books, which students can easily examine, I couldn't possibly fund bringing in all the latest books for review. The Kindle can and, unlike a laptop, presents all of this in one easy-to-survey glance. Students have poked their minds into many books samples to date such as Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen, Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne, and Sharks by Peter Benchley -none of which I have in my room in hard copy. Of these three titles, I've ordered the latter two because interest in them has been significant. Sadly, and maybe only for the moment, Paulsen's Woods Runner is not in demand. His book, apparently, is the butter creme of the bunch for this discerning group of readers.
* Making the Most Cents: Another powerful aspect of having Kindles has been the number of copies I have been able to bring into it with a simple click of a button. When I noticed the book Boost was a hit with students in other classrooms, I made that my first Kindle purchase. It cost 9.99, which seems fair, at first, and then quickly became a steal of a deal when I transferred 5 more copies of the book at no additional cost to four other Kindles. (Most ebooks allow for 5-10 copies to be used at a time from one an account.) So, the real math worked out to less that two bucks a book, which makes the most (sorry) cents to anyone running a classroom and promoting reading. I now have about half my students reading Boost and being in a position to share their reading experience. Thus, for 10 bucks I have 5 happy readers. Excellent stuff!
* Making the Most Cents: Another powerful aspect of having Kindles has been the number of copies I have been able to bring into it with a simple click of a button. When I noticed the book Boost was a hit with students in other classrooms, I made that my first Kindle purchase. It cost 9.99, which seems fair, at first, and then quickly became a steal of a deal when I transferred 5 more copies of the book at no additional cost to four other Kindles. (Most ebooks allow for 5-10 copies to be used at a time from one an account.) So, the real math worked out to less that two bucks a book, which makes the most (sorry) cents to anyone running a classroom and promoting reading. I now have about half my students reading Boost and being in a position to share their reading experience. Thus, for 10 bucks I have 5 happy readers. Excellent stuff!
It's not all been perfect in this early going. Because I have ebooks spread unequally across several Kindles and far more students than Kindles, I've had to track which person is reading from which Kindle. Then everyone has had to learn the art of recording a location number to find their place for when they return to their book a few days later. Also, while the American and Oxford dictionaries are excellent sources for finding definitions, many continue to be too difficult for the younger audience. I wish there was an intermediate version available for installation. I'd happily pay for those to be on each Kindle. Still, these are minor nuisances when compared to how well they're enjoyed in the classroom.
Maybe your child has come home asking about one already? I will say that -if you can swing it financially- it worth buying one. And, there's a chance Kindles will drop to 99 dollars by the summer as that seems to be a good price point to sell even more.
Maybe your child has come home asking about one already? I will say that -if you can swing it financially- it worth buying one. And, there's a chance Kindles will drop to 99 dollars by the summer as that seems to be a good price point to sell even more.
6 comments:
I love my Kindle! It is so nice to be able to download for free, the classics that I read many years ago, and now can re-read them without having to go out and buy the book. It is fun being able to carry my library around. My book stacks by my bed are getting larger, and this is a great way to manage them. I will still read print books, as I have to get through my stacks, but this Kindle thing is a great invention, and satisfies the hungry reader.
"...satisfies the hungry reader..." and that's the key piece for something like a Kindle -you have to enjoy reading. Thanks for the comment and start smiling even more because Amazon has announced a free download that will establish book "pages" for their Kindles. It's about time.
Thanks for this article! I've been wondering how those Kindles would work out with kids. Our local high school has them, but there's apparently a waiting list. That's a good sign, I'm thinking!
We've thought about this, but financially I think we are still better off in our school library with the hard copies. This might change if text books move to an eReader format. Glad they are working for you!
I'm a teacher with five Kindles in my classroom, and my experience is nearly the same. As much as my students and I like the devices, I wish we had more. It's almost like having one would be good (as a novelty piece), and having one per student would be wonderful, but my current five is just uncomfortably right in the middle. Do you also have trouble making sure to share your titles with all your classroom Kindles? I sometimes forget to do this.
Hello Mark,
Judging by your 2:48 AM time stamp, you must be either quite the night owl or somewhere far away from the east coast.
To your question, I generally don't have too much difficulty with sharing the Kindles between kids or even classes. I post a chart with all student names on it and leave a place for each to record the titles he or she are reading with their location number. So, if one student turns a Kindle over to another, the newest reader looks up his/her location, punches it in, and they're all set.
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