For the Love of Reading

I have always been an avid reader. I think it’s in my blood. If you’d ask me to draw a picture of my grandmother, it would be of her sitting on the couch, or on a chair, anywhere, with a book in her hand. Her purse always seemed extra heavy when I’d pick it up, because there was inevitably at least one novel tucked inside. The many bookshelves, drawers and cabinets throughout her house were packed to the brim with books. So I think I come by it naturally.

Reading is what I always make time for as part of my self-care and well-being. And I always strive to get my students to develop their own love of reading as well. I wrote this latest blog post sharing the Book Tasting activity I did with my class. I wanted to share some resources with parents and students to help them find those “just right” books, that meet the interest level AND reading level of each individual child.

I created the following screencast, which was also uploaded to the blog, to walk parents through the process of searching for the best books for their child, or checking to see if a book is appropriate for their child to read independently, using Accelerated Reader Bookfinder.

I wholeheartedly believe that students should feel free to read what interests them. I also recognize that while some books may be appealing to students, the vocabulary used can cause frustration, which is the opposite of what one should feel when they read. With this tool, if a child wants to read a book outside their ZPD, they can always look for other ways of reading that book, such as with an audiobook or reading together with a parent.

I have made screencasts before, however never on a Chromebook. So my first step was to find a compatible program. I ended up using Screencastify which has a free add-on for Chrome. It was really simple to use, and automatically saves your videos to Google Drive.

I made a quick outline for myself before I started, yet after the first couple of attempts, I realized I needed more information and kept adding to my outline until I came up with the image to the right. This helped me stay on track and ensure I knew what I wanted to include in what order. Even with this though, I still needed to stop and rerecord multiple times! I decided not to make a script as I wanted to sound authentic and less like I was reading off a paper. I may try this though for the next one, as I’m not sure I was as fluid as I could have been.

I really enjoyed making a screencast. I think having the visual will be helpful for students and parents as they get more used to this helpful tool. It also serves as a good example for my students of how they can teach their peers about a useful tool or topic in a succinct, clear and simple way. I hope that when students come back from the much needed break, there will be a few risk-takers who can model screencasting for their peers.