T'was the Night

Objective:  students will know how to use tools in iBooks on the iPad to improve their reading comprehension.
Continuing Objective:  students will focus on reading with expression, with correct phrasing, and at an appropriate rate.

One of the apps' companies I really like is Moving Tales.  They create a cross between a book and a movie in app form.  In the future I plan to use The Unwanted Guest and The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross, but today it's going to be T'was the Night Before Christmas.  'Tis the season, you know.  I did just find out they have a new book app called This Too Shall Pass that I'm going to have to check out soon.

When the students came in I told them we would be having holiday fun today reading a story/poem by Clement Moore.  First I did a brief lesson on contractions and archaic English, so they would understand the word 'Twas.  As part of the introduction, we also talked about rhyming couplets.

Then the fun began.  We watched, listened, and read the Moving Tales version of "Twas the night Before Christmas," and I asked the students to be attentive to words they might not understand.  After viewing the story, we switched to a free version of the story that I had downloaded to iBooks.  It was a version they could also listen to.  I modeled how they could use the iBooks magnifier tool to define a word - we used it to define "coursers."

Students then worked in pairs practicing reading aloud while using the magnifier to define words.  While they were doing that, I called up individual students and used the Moving Tales app to record them reading pages of the story.  I would play the app with the narration, have them practice, and then record them.  We ran out of time to record all of them, so I'll keep you posted on how we followed up.