I love guided reading. It’s small group instruction with leveled groups that focuses on specific skills. It gives me the chance to really focus on individualized skills with my students, take data, and provide instruction that is exactly at their level. My struggle is a resource issue. I have loads of books. My mom went on a garage and 1/2 price books binge a few years ago so my library is nicely stocked with a wide range of books. My problem is that I have very book sets. For guided reading to be successful, you need each student to have a copy of the book. They need to hear the words and see the words. Our students are visual learners, remember?
I have very few book sets and the ones that I do have are just down right boring. I wanted to work on challenging books with my higher level reading groups and in order to avoid a complete uprising – I needed these books to be engaging! As always – iPads to the rescue. You can download the kindle app for free and put the same book on multiple devices. Easy peasy and look crazy high tech 🙂
With my high group, we are reading a Goosebumps book which they are OBSESSED with. I give them points on the table with a dry erase marker to provide some quick positive reinforcement for good reading.
Based on the skills each group is working on – we use different activities from my Ultimate Guided Reading Resource. My high group is working on character traits and my next group is working on sequencing.
One of the great things about the kindle is that it has a built dictionary. You can click on any word and the definition pops up. Perfect for learning new vocabulary!
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8 Responses
What books have you found for the Kindle that your students enjoy the most? Do you get audio version for the students with more difficulties?
This is such a great idea. My question is how are you able to get the books? Do you purchase the titles or borrow them? I thought that it was only possible to “check out” one copy.
We are reading a goosebumps book now and they LOVE it. I have a great app that reads books aloud on my school iPads but am completely blanking on the name! I will get it to you!
Nope – you can put them on multiple devices. I think it’s up to 5 or 6. You just log in to your kindle account on each iPad and download. It was so easy and convenient!
The app name would be great! Thanks!
Did you remember the name of the app for the iPads?
Yes! Sorry! It’s MyOn – here is the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myon/id548056295?mt=8
Thanks for the info but you have to have a subscription to that. If you find an app that will read kindle books, please let me know. The only thing I’ve found so far is the ‘voice over’ that is built into the iPad and it is terrible! Thanks again.