At conferences the idea of E-Books and Audio Books were brought up. We know that many of our 4th grade families have an iPad of some sort at home. There are some pros and cons to using them both. Some pros (in our opinion) include:
-Instant dictionary- click the word and you are taken to the meaning of the word
-Only viewing one page at a time- not overwhelming
-Change text size
-Can't flip through aimlessly to waste time and 'see' how many more pages are left
Some cons (in our opinion) include:
-Not holding the book
-Not always having the technology to use
-Price of buying e-books
Some E-Books also come with the option of being an audio book. With an audio book you can simply plug in your ear-buds and listen to someone read the story as you follow along. Personally the only con would be it's easy to get off track if you are not paying attention-but you can rewind!
There have been some studies done linking audio books with increasing fluency in readers. Fluency is the rate and expression in which one reads. A fluent reader's eyes are normally ahead of the words that they are actually saying making the voice smooth, not choppy. Also since they are reading ahead with their eyes they know if the sentence is a question or an exclamatory one which adds to the expression factor. There is also some research into fluency and comprehension. However we find that at the 4th grade level some students can read quickly and have great fluency but they have no idea what they are reading.
With all this said we think that SOMETIMES reading an e-book or listening to an audio book is great, not every book needs to be read this way. It is just a nice way to switch it up. A student could have a hard copy at school of a book and listen to or read an e-book of the same title at home.
Looking at e-books and audio book they can be very expensive to buy. However there is an iPad and iPhone app where you can login and borrow books from any SWAN library- Downers Grove and Woodridge included, complete list here. Once the free app is downloaded, some users will need to login with an adobe password (it's free, when I did it I didn't even realize that I had one!), and then login with your library card. If you have ever requested materials from the library online then you will have your pin (passcode that you have created) if not then you will need to register your library card online through your library home webpage.
You may borrow an e-book for 2 weeks. Sometimes you may need to put a hold on a book if there is not enough digital copies for the more popular titles. The best part is the search feature and the advance search feature- you can advance search by grade level which may be helpful if your student does not know the exact title they want.
**Please remember that adult books are available to checkout as well so this may be an app that only adults use to checkout books and students then can read the books or something that you browse with your student together.
The app is OverDrive Media Console click here for a link. It is definitely worth checking out if you haven't done so yet!
Happy Reading (and maybe for you too!)!!
