When starting to think about this topic of fostering a reading cultures in my school, I know that there are many traditionalists that feel like reading should only be from a paper book. I think that as technology has evolved, we are slowly moving away from that mindset. I mean, even for this course we were able to purchase our textbooks on Amazon and read them on a device or print if we felt so inclined.
Our most recent stint in remote learning also opened a lot of educators eyes to what is available online for our students to access. I know that many companies were offering free subscriptions and access during this time of remote learning to help out during these strange times, which was greatly appreciated. I know that having conversations with parents, that they were able to find a whole bunch of resources to keep their child occupied while we were in that limbo phase at the end of March and into April. In my conversations with parents they were getting a lot of use of virtual field trips found online and a lot of people were using Scholastic Learn at home and Math Prodigy
When I was in my Tech Support role, one of my jobs was researching and suggesting different apps to use in an Elementary setting. ‘Epic! Books for Kids‘ was always my number one App that I would suggest and was always well received from both teachers and students. There are a few things that I love about this App. I have shown some of my favourites in the video below.
2. There are ‘Read-to-me’ books which are in the sense our old ‘reading and listening’ stations that we used to have in classrooms with the cassette tapes or CD’s. This is a great feature of the app because it highlights the words as it reads, which I think is much more beneficial than just having the book because this way is teaches the student how to track along the words. There are also audio only (mainly longer chapter books) that can be used for independent book study or helping students who struggle with reading, yet still want to enjoy like everyone else.
3. There are educational videos that are often related to books that students are reading. The great thing about this feature is that you can easily toggle this function on and off as an educator. Personally, I have kept this off for my students when it is reading time so that I know that they are finding a book rather than watching a video. If we were doing something like research I would turn this function back on.
4. With permission of course, you can set up a class (even use avatar names if you choose) list with names so that you can track the books that students are reading. You can see how long they spent reading, how many books they have read and also assign books or quizzes to go along with reading.
During return to school I got to see how much students love this app. They are able to find books to suit their mood. My favourite memory of all this was when my students started to ask each other jokes from the books that they had found. They started to naturally rate each others jokes, which I found hilarious. It was awesome to hear their discussions. I could also monitor my students that were still learning at home to see if they were reading.
I also noticed that the students who were in class were able to read for much longer periods of time than they had during our traditional ‘D.E.A.R.’ time. From January to March I used to have to put up a timer on our Smartboard for 15min so that students were aware and could see ‘how much longer’ we HAD to read. Often times if I felt like this time was not being used for its purpose I would start the timer over, or add a few minutes. When we returned to school in June my students would be reading for 20 minutes, I would check in and ask if they wanted more time and they always said yes! I was shocked. I had students that returned to school that did not enjoy reading in the traditional sense, but they absolutely loved reading on Epic!
I do believe that this is because they are able to switch to something else very quickly and easily if they find that they are not interested in what they are reading. This may not be the best for their reading endurance, but at least this way they are not constantly getting up and socializing with their friends along the way as they choose a new book. So I guess it was also a helpful classroom management tool 🙂
I used this App to support reading as low as the Kindergarten level. It is so user friendly and having the ability to assign a collection of books allows the teacher to have a little bit of control instead of a free for all. The Kindergarten students really enjoyed the Read-to-me books and they were super engaged. I know that this is in part that they were in front of a screen, but they were still tracking and listening, which is what we want to see in emerging readers. I think that this is highly important when creating resources for teachers.
The web allows us to do amazing things, “You create some sort of web tool that students can refer to when you’re working with a different teacher and another teacher comes to you at the same time.” (Fontichiaro & Oehrli, 2014, p. 38)’ Having this access is a game changer for classes who may be working on similar inquiries. Having a resource like this could allow several classes to be studying the same novel without having to purchase the book, or several classes could be working on the same Inquiry project and the TL would not have to worry about running out of resources.
As mentioned in my video, if I am to move into a Learning Commons position, I could see myself using this App a lot while collaborating with teachers. It is a great resources for any type of inquiry as it offers both books and videos for the students to learn from. If teachers wanted students to stick to a general theme of their inquiry, I could also help curate a collection, or maybe several collections of books and videos that would suit the inquiry.
Works Cited:
Fontichiaro, K. & Oehrli, J. A. (2014a). Nudging toward inquiry – Turning the tables on collaboration part I: Planning for success. Library Media Connection 32(4): 36-38.
Yes, Epic books is really EPIC! I discovered this program during the remote learning period too and I loved it. It was very easy to use and the students had access to so many books. It was well received by parents too because there were levelled books available which allowed them to see their child’s progress in reading.
I really liked how it notifies you of which student is reading and for how long. I was really impressed by how many of my students were using the program and how long they were reading for. Every time I would login to check, it would always be a different student reading. I hope my school will get a subscription for this program for next year!
Thank you for the thorough look through Epic! I have used it a little bit just this year, but not very much since I am an IST. It was nice to see how it works! Some of the intermediate teachers at my school use it for the Grade 4’s and 5’s but not too many of the younger grades have used it for anything beyond a read aloud. I have been told that some of the students I work with, really love using Epic because when they are on the computer, they look just like all the other students and you can’t tell that they are getting help or reading books that are not considered at their grade level.
It’s good to know it can be engaging for all students. The ability to create collections for an entire class is a nice feature!
This is a strong post. I appreciate your video tutorial on Epic!. This combined with the story of how the app worked for you and your students during remote learning as well as the return to school provides authentic modelling of how to foster a reading culture.
Hi Taryn,
I enjoyed reading your blog as mine was on a similar topic, but with a different angle. I will look up Epic! Books to see how it works so that I am familiar with it before September! Thank you for your suggestions as they were useful to my own learning!
Lindsey