Duration: 2:54
Teacher Julie Hinman, from Avondale School, talks about how the introduction of iPads into her classroom renewed enthusiasm for one of her students in reading.
Julia Hinman:
I’m Julia Hinman and I’m teaching Year 3 at Avondale Primary School in Christchurch.
This year I have a focus on one child in my classroom who has been probably plateaued in his reading, and I was searching and trying to work out how can I improve his reading, how can we get the fluency and the confidence improved, and the opportunity really arose when we got the iPads into the classroom.
He uses my iPad, he is quite independent, he goes away and uses Quick Voice, he will record his reading for the day. We have a log (of) from the time he started doing that to present day, so you can see a change in his reading. He listens back to his own reading, and he can then see his next steps as far as, "What do I need to do to improve the sound of my reading". That’s worked really well for him, he really enjoys that. He’s quite confident and energised by it. He likes being different. He likes to be the one whose special.
He also has the opportunities to take photos of the books he’s reading, especially the ones that he likes, so that then he can read that onto the apps such as Book Creator and share it with others.
He’s also been reading e-books – having them read to him and reading them himself – so he’s got an example of fluency and the way reading should sound.
We’re not far into it but I can see a difference in his reading, and he is so much happier and more enthusiastic about his approach to reading as well.
It’s really hard to tell whether this has made a huge difference in his reading ability. I think it’s made a big difference in his attitude and his enthusiasm to reading at this point in time.
If it was to continue it would be a good way of measuring whether there’s a lot of difference in his reading ability.
I did take running records at the beginning, and will take running records throughout the time that he’s with me, and it would be really good to see that improvement as well. But I’m really pleased at the moment even just to see the improvement in the attitude and enthusiasm and approach to reading.
I’m really hoping to see at the end of the year that his enthusiasm and his desire to read and look at books as well as e-books and things like that will have an effect, that it will wear off on others as well, and hopefully that would be an area that I could look at doing for groups, or further individuals to help them with their reading as well.
But I think with that child just having that renewed enthusiasm and attitude towards reading will be a big stepping stone for him (in his next) for this year and for his following years.