Notes   @gregoconnor   bit.ly/GAFENZ

Top tip:

Sign up to bit.ly/ this will give you a shortened website name that you can scribe the name. You can also check in to see how long they have been there. “Its a literacy tool”.

Programme: Read and Write

Making a GIFF – go to youtube, find a video, right hand click (Copy the url), click on URl start video. (youtube has a built in GIFF editor) put UIF in front of the youtube clip and this is how you can create your GIFF.

Greg has a ‘transition’ video between sessions. This gives chance for kids who have finished to stay focussed and kids who haven’t an opportunity to finish work.

Big 6 about Literacy… Workshop is focussing on Vocab… http://www.fivefromfive.org.au Greg says this is a must to visit!!

How do we get kids to be more fluent with reading? Greg uses Read&write and flencytutor. (R&W is free) the other is a trial for 30 days then buy it.

Kids who read below 100 wpm find it hard to comprehend. They read so slow that they spend time decoding as opposed to reading & comprehending. Kids often feel dumb so need to make them avid readers. This is why we should use text-to-speech. Kids find this a relief!! Don’t use this as a junior, but older kids. Its great for kids that the text is new to them. Let it read it to them, then let them read it.

How do you enable “Text to speech” – on MAC go to accessibility, then (see photos). Highlight the text then press OPT&ESC and it will read it to them.

I need to think then but there are two things…

  • interest level
  • level of the text (reading age)

Have you thought about the reading age of our school community? What are our newsletters like to read? Go to website… re-word–fy. com  this asks you to paste the text or weblink. It examines the texts then give you a series of texts then give you a grade level. It also tells us the reading ease, plus a whole bunch of other stats. The other thing it does “parts of speech” and colour code the text. Can turn these off and on! This can now be a vocab lesson. E.g. teach the kids the nouns so they know what they are reading. You can do this for a website as well.  ** note that the grades are American. You can google a grade translator.

Readability formulas (another website) there should be no reasons to give texts that are too hard. It should be based on their level.

Microsoft word has read ability attached to it. Click on preferences, spelling and grammar, (down bottom) readability… tick this off. Then spell check it, then go ok…

Simple.wikipedia (has same content but opportunity to read in a less text. Its in plain english for readers who are struggling with reading and/or English.

Extension app – managing extensions. You can turn these off and on!! Wikiwond makes it fun and easy to follow.

Websites:

fan fiction – this is where authors write extra additional chapters or stories!! There are also filters e.g. K is for children setting (So you don’t get inappropriate text types). You can make the background black or white, in different text formats e.g. offline version, e-book,

dotepub its an ‘extension’ this will turn them into an e-book (alternative to a pdf). You can also store these on google drive!. E-book reader is link to read&write for google chrome

Newsela – its articles that you collect each day. It cleans it up so there are no adds etc. You can then check the grades, set quiz plus lots more!! Kids can search for areas of interest. This is student agency! Kids can do all this themselves.

Snapverter – its an online scanner to put a text into a PDF.

Active Reading:

Put things onto their own words to remember what they read (See slide 26)

use talk& comment   this allows them to read something then do a voice over.

Extension –Insertlearning (load as a teacher or student) Kids can highlight a paragraph and then this creates a stickie for them. Or they can make a video and will embed the video in their website

….

We can do all these things for the students BUT they have read for me!! We wnat them to be fluent readers who get feedback. I want to be able to collect data to record how many words per minute they can read. (More commonly known as RUNNING RECORD).

FLUENCYTUTOR – now replaces these!!

Jonny can highlight the first paragraph, highlight read&write, then highlight practise reading aloud. (this will space it out for him, reads the text to him again), can click on parts of speech e.g. click on word ‘land’.  When he’s ready to go he presses the microphone. When they are ready they press ‘send’ to my teacher (google classroom account or gmail). This sends the recording to the teacher. So many of our kids never listen to themselves reading! Most will dislike what they hear 🙂

 

Greg is sending a link with all the google apps for learning. Lots of amazing things for students to support them with their reading. Need time to practise this. I would suggest setting up some early adopters to get this up and running across the school. Especially true for the running records. These would be an excellent way for parents to understand how their child reads and learns. Maybe run a community workshop?