Your web browser might not work well with our site. We recommend you upgrade your browser.
Your custom url is /bethany-messina
This is where having iPads in my classroom comes into play. Many of my students do not come from homes where nighttime rituals include bedtime stories. This lack of exposure to fluent reading hampers literacy growth in more ways than you'd imagine. Would you believe that... A student who reads 20 minutes/day will hear 1,800,000 words per year WHEREAS a student who reads 5 minutes/day will hear only 282,000 words? Without exposure to vocabulary, decoding and reading fluency becomes a more daunting task. Students spend most (if not all) of their energy attempting to "sound out words" and subsequently aren't able to dive deeper into their reading. Identifying characters and their traits, analyzing cause and effect, locating main ideas and supporting details--these are skills that are best practiced when you hear a fluent reading of a text. I am extremely proud of my classroom library. My students have access to tubs of books grouped by reading levels, by interest, by author, and by genre. But I would also like my students to have access to iPads that are loaded with reading apps! When I had iPads in my classroom last year, I found that after listening to a story on an iPad, students would ask for help locating the story (or a similar story) in my classroom library! Students would talk about their reading, making book recommendations to each other. Some students became "experts" on topics like frogs or volcanoes. And all of this happened in 1st grade! Having continued access to iPads in the classroom will encourage my now 2nd-graders to continue on their reading journeys. Thank you!
Read more