My Little Readers

As soon as my grandchildren enter my house, they are greeted by our reading room. I keep it well stocked with books for kids up to age six. I have a huge library downstairs with books for the older kids. I use an app called Book Buddy (best five dollars ever spent) to organize my library. This app even allows me to sign books out to people, so the kids are able to check out books from Grandma's library.

I added a few videos of me reading stories to Youtube. Jace, Callie, and Isaac love to listen to them, so when they came to visit a few days ago, Isaac asked if I would record them reading and put them on  my channel.

Having kids record themselves reading is a great way to build fluency. I've used this idea in my reading classroom. Most middle school students have cell phones that allow them to record themselves reading. In the classroom we use poetry or Reader's Theater. As students read and playback their recordings, they see where they stumble, when they are reading too quickly or too slowly, and find words that they aren't quite sure how to pronounce or what they mean.

Callie and Isaac went through this process in preparing to record. First they read through their selected book several times. Second we recorded. Thirdly they played back their recordings to evaluate what they thought went well and where they thought improvements could be made. Finally we repeated this process until they were happy with their recordings.

This strategy makes struggling readers strong, and strong readers even stronger. Children get to choose a book that they think is worth sharing, which gives them motivation to read well for the recording.

Isaac picked Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman. He even created a voice for the robot.

Isaac reading Boy + Bot

Callie chose Not A Box by Antoinette Portis.

Callie reading Not A Box

They did a great job preparing and reading these stories.

Read to a child today even if that child is you!