Do iPads + ELL Students = Reading Comprehension?

Last week I presented a session at the Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE) conference in Seattle.  The title of my session was the same as the title of this post.  I'm still not sure of the answer to the question I posed.  During formative assessments as this project proceeds, I do see quite a bit of growth for most of the students.  Recently we completed the summative assessment called the DRP (Degrees of Reading Power) which, according to the test maker, are "holistic measures of how well students understand the meaning of text. Test results are reported on the DRP Scale of Text Difficulty – the same scale that is used to measure the reading difficulty of printed material."  
The test results give us a score for each student which indicates an independent reading level and an instructional reading level.  Looking at the class's scores, 66% of the students made considerable progress on the DRP since they took it in the fall.  I think their growth has been even more exceptional since we gave the DRP in February instead of in May when the spring test really should be given.  But it is only one measure of student progress.  The students also took the new WELPA (Washington English Language Proficiency Assessment) a few weeks ago.  According to the state:
"It measures students’ growth in English language knowledge and skills. Results from this test determine which students are eligible to continue to receive ELD services."  We won't have the results from this test until May, so we shall see if any of the students were able to test out of English Language Development services.  I'm hopeful.

Editing Woes

The students came back to the library to work on editing their writing assignment that they had completed in their ELL classroom.  This time they recorded their own writing using the iTalk app.  Then they listened to the recording while editing their own work.  I told them how I usually will read aloud my own writing so that I can hear my errors.  They really worked hard on this and heard lots of errors that they had made; unfortunately they don't have enough writing skills yet to be able to know how to make the corrections properly.  They tried, but many of them did not know how to punctuate correctly to say exactly what they wanted to say.  I do think it was good that two girls came to me saying that their writing didn't make sense as they tried to record it.  They are becoming more thoughtful about their work.  There's lots more work for us to do.

Fantastic Flying Books app is Fantastic!

On Friday, my students had a chance to spend some time with the app of The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  I had planned on having students read/listen/interact with the book for part of the period and then write about it, but they had such a great time with the app that we never got to the writing part.  Students were paired up with their headphone splitters, headphones, and iPads.  They spread out throughout the library absorbed in the book, and all I heard were their reactions to the app:  laughter, giggles, oohs and aahs, and comments like, "Look at his face!", "That's cool!", "Let's see that again."  

Thinking about how to write about the story

They loved playing the piano within the story

 

They had a great time creating words within the alphabet cereal and then taking photos of them.

 Afterwards all the students said they preferred the app to the movie. One student expressed the reason why so well; she said, "You felt like you were experiencing the story."  The interactive app draws the reader in rather that being a passive watcher of the film.
Students will continue with their ELL teacher on Monday to write about the app with this objective:
Students will be able to summarize a story by writing about it in complete thoughts and sentences.

Fantastic Flying Books

There's a wonderful animated movie and app called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  The movie is nominated this year for an Oscar for Best Animated Short and it's available for free download through iTunes.  The app costs $4.99 for the iPad, includes a link for the movie and is definitely worth it.
Last week I showed the movie to the ELL class and had them taking notes about the movie.  It is filled with music, but no dialogue, and I wanted them to be able to tell the story of the film.  I gave them a form to fill out listing the characters, the settings, the problem, and the resolution.  Afterwards they had to retell the film's story in their own words.  Many of them did a very good job, though only one of them was able to really retell the story in her own creative way.  She truly made it her own story.  I think one of the differences for this student is that she was well-educated in her home language in her home country.  Many of our students are refugees with limited or no schooling in their former refugee camps, or they cannot read or write in the language that is spoken in their own home.  It is much easier to acquire fluency in a new language if you are literate in your first language.
That said, I am looking forward to next time, when the students will have the chance to spend some time with the Fantastic Flying Books app.  It is an interactive book with narration that tells the charming story of Morris Lessmore who is displaced by a terrible windstorm.  It's a wonderfully charming story with very clever interactive features, including a bowl of alphabet cereal in which readers can make words.  Afterwards they can even take photos of their bowl of words and save them.
I'll keep you posted on how the students like the app.

Practice Makes Almost Perfect

Objective:  Students will increase reading fluency through using their voices to express feeling while reading.

We've been spending lots of time recording our reading aloud, listening, and critiquing.  The last two times students came to the library they read Reading Fluency Practices from their ELL textbooks.  These were readings they were familiar with already.  The first week two students shared iPads and used a form to critique their own reading and their partners' reading.  With some good feedback from their ELL teacher, Jennelle, I changed the written response form so that students would be required to use complete sentences when they critiqued their own reading aloud.  I also had students working alone with their own iPad.  This made a big difference in the quality of their reading and written work.  Since they're saving all their recordings in Dropbox, I can listen to them from home.  They each have their own folder in the same account, and we've been able to save many weeks of recordings and compare their reading fluency now with how they did in the beginning.  I'm really beginning to hear much improvement.  I was hoping the students would be taking their standardized reading test this week, but it's been moved to March, so I won't know till then if what we've been doing translates into better reading scores for the students. I certainly hope so.

Snow Pad

We've been having lots of snow here in Seattle, so we're going on our third snow day as of tomorrow.  That means not much activity with the iPads.  Last week I did get to show my students a quick StoryKit book I created.  It was about them, so they really seemed to like it.  I think they're getting very excited about producing their own books soon.  StoryKit would be very easy for them to be able to use, but I don't like the limitations of the program for creating something lasting that can include audio.  Once you e-mail it and someone reads it on their computer, they can no longer listen to the audio.  So I'm still on the search for another app to use with my students.
The iPad symposium at PSESD was really great.  My presentation seemed to be well received and I came away with lots of great ideas from other people's presentations.  Actually I really came away with a full brain and much to explore.  Truthfully these three snow days have been a wonderful opportunity to do just that!
One of the apps I learned about is Sock Puppet - it's a hoot.  It's just fun to play around with, but you could also use it with students in creating plays, videos, etc.
I also came away from the symposium determined to spend some time using Evernote.  I've had this app for ages, but I've never really used it, though it's supposed to be a great organizational tool.  I'll let you know.

Creating an ePub

I spent most of today getting ready for a presentation I'm giving at an iPad symposium on Wednesday.  By "most of the day" I mean all the time that I wasn't being distracted by something else on the Internet.  I decided to create an ePub out of this blog so that I could share it with people who come to my presentation.  I'd never created an ePub, but I didn't think it would take long using Apple's iWorks Pages program since I already had written the blog.  Yes, I was wrong....I can hear people snickering.  It did take several hours and many exports to actually produce an ePub that looks somewhat how I wanted it to look.  It was mostly a matter of getting the photos to place properly within the text and getting chapters to begin at the beginning of pages.
For those of you who aren't sure of what an ePub is, it's an electronic publication that can be read on iPads, Nooks, and other e-book readers.  At this point, you can use Pages on a Mac to create one and then drop it into your iTunes account.  When you sync your iPhone or iPad, the book goes into your iBook app. I was hoping to use it with my students, but unfortunately the Pages app for the iPad doesn't yet create ePubs so I'm going to check out an app I downloaded the other day called Book Creator.  I actually think Book Creator will be easier and more manageable for my students anyway.  I'll let you know how it works.