Listening to reading is an important component of literacy instruction. When children listen to experienced readers, they too become better readers. In my classroom, I have struggled to offer students with a way to listen to reading. As a relatively new teacher, I have access to an old cassette player, yet audio books are so much easier to access through iTunes or available mostly by CD. This created a problem for me. I wanted to implement this read to self option for Daily Five reading instruction, but I didn't have the right materials. Recently, I began purchasing these stories from iTunes and collecting the books through book clubs or used book sales. I also began importing my books on CD to my iTunes account and linking them to pictures of the book covers to make selection of the audio file and the actual book easier. For the first time today, students were able to easily listen to new and favorite stories. Since I have not yet had time to sync these stories to the iPod touches, I trained four children to be "team leaders." These children easily selected already downloaded books from my MacBook and their groups were able to listen to stories that were too difficult for them to read independently during their selected time. They fell in love!
As I reflect on the "listening to reading" experience today, there are many positives. Students were engaged with high quality literature while I worked with small groups and some groups were able to use high level cooperation strategies to choose books together. Everyone agreed that the time they spent listening to reading was fun. However, I am thinking about making some improvements because, as with any new thing that is introduced, there were some glitches. When groups chose stories that I had only one hard copy of, it was hard for each child to see the pages and words It was also hard for one group to agree upon a book to listen to and much time was wasted in the decision making process. Syncing these books to individual iPod Touches would be beneficial because both of these problems would be avoided. Students would feel that they had a choice in book choosing, which helps teaching them an important skill: how to choose appropriate books. As I work to perfect this independent reading instruction option, I will let you know what works and what doesn't.
Listening to reading is an important component of literacy instruction. When children listen to experienced readers, they too become better readers. In my classroom, I have struggled to offer students with a way to listen to reading. As a relatively new teacher, I have access to an old cassette player, yet audio books are so much easier to access through iTunes or available mostly by CD. This created a problem for me. I wanted to implement this read to self option for Daily Five reading instruction, but I didn't have the right materials. Recently, I began purchasing these stories from iTunes and collecting the books through book clubs or used book sales. I also began importing my books on CD to my iTunes account and linking them to pictures of the book covers to make selection of the audio file and the actual book easier. For the first time today, students were able to easily listen to new and favorite stories. Since I have not yet had time to sync these stories to the iPod touches, I trained four children to be "team leaders." These children easily selected already downloaded books from my MacBook and their groups were able to listen to stories that were too difficult for them to read independently during their selected time. They fell in love! 
As I reflect on the "listening to reading" experience today, there are many positives. Students were engaged with high quality literature while I worked with small groups and some groups were able to use high level cooperation strategies to choose books together. Everyone agreed that the time they spent listening to reading was fun. However, I am thinking about making some improvements because, as with any new thing that is introduced, there were some glitches. When groups chose stories that I had only one hard copy of, it was hard for each child to see the pages and words It was also hard for one group to agree upon a book to listen to and much time was wasted in the decision making process. Syncing these books to individual iPod Touches would be beneficial because both of these problems would be avoided. Students would feel that they had a choice in book choosing, which helps teaching them an important skill: how to choose appropriate books. As I work to perfect this independent reading instruction option, I will let you know what works and what doesn't.
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