Using iPads at Independent Reading Time
11:46 AMIndependent reading time is a tough time of the day when you are a non-reader or emergent reader. 20-30 minutes each day where you are expected to "read" a book without making any noise or causing any distractions can easily become a frustrating time for these students. The becomes especially pronounced as students get older and picture books turn into chapter books and it becomes harder to look like everyone else while still looking at books that are of interest and at ability level.
The iPad can be a great tool at these times. So many ebooks and audiobooks are available that all the student needs is a set of headphones and they can listen to or watch videos of books to their hearts content.
These apps are free to the iPad and give the opportunity to purchase books to be added to your personal library. The books that you purchase are your forever and can be accessed on a variety of devices with your login and password. The prices are a little lower than buying an actual paper copy of the book and just think, no ripped pages or lost books. If the book doesn't already have the audio option you can always use the built in text to speech capabilities of the iPad.
Check out this site for news on free kindle books for kids.
You can create your own books in Book Creator and publish them to iBooks. Kids love to read about themselves or topics of interest.
These are apps for the iPad. All of them are free but most include costs for downloading books. Epic is totally free, as is My Backpack. With others you are entitled to a free book every so often.
These sites allow students to read stories online. Bookflix and TumbleBooks require a membership but the others are free.
storylineonline.net
tumblebooks.com
Copying and pasting the youtube address into safeshare.tv provides you with an ad free version that you can have students view without worry.
These sites allow students to read stories online. Bookflix and TumbleBooks require a membership but the others are free.
storylineonline.net
tumblebooks.com
Or...
Make a video of yourself or the student reading a book.
Have the class act out a favourite story and use iMovie to make it into a video that can be played at reading time.
Think about using apps like Puppet Pals, Toontastic, iMotion, Sock Puppets, Book Creator, etc. to turn a story into a creation that can be watched again and again.
CDs from your listening center can be imported to iTunes and synced to the music app on your iPad. Students can follow along with the actual book just like at a traditional learning centre.
Do a youtube search of your favourite book. Chances are there might be a video of it being read aloud.
Copying and pasting the youtube address into safeshare.tv provides you with an ad free version that you can have students view without worry.
I have made QR codes to match the youtube addresses for these books. Students need only scan the QR code to access the reading of the book.
teacherspayteachers.com has lots of sets of QR coded stories for sale but really this procedure just takes minutes so give it a try before you buy.
Don’t forget the iPad’s built in capability for reading an highlighted text. Click below for a link to instructions for setting up text to speech on your iPad.
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