Reading with the lights off? Really? How do you do that?

Find 

innovative,

creative, 

accessible, and 

FUN

ways to read. 

Here is a video of my son reading a book to me.  I read this book to him, about 3 months ago. You will see that he gets tired towards the end of the story, and that's why I jump in and help him out!

After we read the story he wanted to watch the video.

So that was a great opportunity to talk about some of the great things he was doing in his reading

and....

talk about some of the things that he could do to improve his reading.

I went for ..

fluency.

After we talked about how well he had done,

I suggested that the next time he read it he could try to 

talk like the big bad wolf.

We went back to one of the pages with big bad wolf text and I modelled what it would sound like for him and then gave him a chance to try it.  He did, and we both laughed! He did a great job.

The next night, I gave him the i-Pad to take to his room and record himself reading the book.  I told him I wanted to listen to it later as my bed time story and I asked him not to make the big bad wolf sound too scary! (A little reminder of what we'd talked about the last time).

I've decided to post this, because I think it shows another great way to use the video/audio record on the i-Pad.  It's a great way for students to hear and see themselves read.  They love to watch their video's afterwards which creates a wonderful opportunity to do some conferencing and goal setting.

When children record themselves reading they can post it to their blog or email it to someone that they would like to share it with.  It let's the parent/grandparent/caregiver see on-going growth in reading and creates an opportunity for them to give immediate feedback to the child.

These recordings form the beginnings of a beautiful portfolio and provide great opportunities for 

celebrating achievements in reading!