www.LYPonline.com
 |
 |
|
Case Study |
May/June 2008 |
Motivating & Engaging
Readers of All Levels
Are your library seats filled with eager readers? At Northview High School in Covina, California, empty chairs and tables were common in the media center until a concerted effort was made to open a new chapter at the library.
“Be welcoming, be professional, and empower the students;” says school librarian Hillary Wolfe, “these are our new library guidelines and they’ve worked to transform the school library into a hive that is buzzing with students.”
Most importantly, Northview introduced a peer tutoring intervention program featuring audiobooks. In its first year, 70 students gave up their free periods to come to the library and help struggling classmates. Half of Northview’s students participated as “tutees” and on average they raised their grades 14 points in math, English, foreign language and government.
Recorded books were a staple of the intervention program, with tutors and tutees listening to books together in literature circles. Tutors helped seniors as they read Siddhartha and Hamlet. They helped freshman, some with fourth grade reading levels, with To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men.
Not surprisingly, the tutors benefitted as much as those they helped. Excited by the success they were witnessing first hand, the tutors formed a book club for themselves and their friends and they used it as a study/support group as they worked through their independent reading requirements in AP and Honors classes. The Northview book club became the host for book fairs and established a book review blog for their peers. In year two of the program, the book club will act as a student advisory board to assist in the selection of new materials for the library.
You can be sure there will be a sequel to the story in year three.
A Florida District Boosts Scores with Recorded Books
Nearly ten years ago, Hillsborough County introduced a new audio strategy for reluctant readers, encouraging teens in need of motivation to listen to books as they read along with the book
“It’s working,” says Lynn Dougherty-Underwood, middle and secondary reading supervisor. “Recorded books let teachers connect kids to text they wouldn’t necessarily be able read on their own.”
Students in Hillsborough’s middle school reading classes have normative reference scores ranging from the 1st to the 50th percentile. In order to graduate from high school, they must raise their scores to a state benchmark which typically correlates to the 68th to 73rd percentile.
“With recorded books, the NRS has grown tremendously,” says Ms. Dougherty-Underwood. “A number of students in the 30th to 50th percentile have gained 25 to 30 percentiles in one year.”
Each new school year, Hillsborough’s reading teachers issue book passes to students who “rent” books to find their favorites. “Teachers tantalize them at first, then turn them loose,” the supervisor says. “Students will do a recorded book or two with a text, then read a text alone.”
This process molds independent readers. “When they reach a certain level of fluency, recorded books are put away,” she says. “It turns kids around when they see themselves as readers, as successes.”
The district also relies on recorded books in its in-school suspension program, where classes may hold 40 students. “At the end of their suspensions, some students have asked for “Bank Days” so that they can stay in suspension and finish their books—they know they’ll be in trouble again somewhere down the line.”
5th Grade Reading Fever Sparked by Recorded Books on Playaway
Jennifer Cord and Laurie McGrath, 5th grade
teachers at White Marsh Elementary in Mechanicsville, Maryland, use
Recorded Books on Playaway as a supplemental reading tool to support
their independent reading program. “It’s absolutely amazing how fast the fever has caught on,” says Mrs. Cord. Students like the small, portable players because they are fun and they are convenient. “You can take them anywhere,” said one White Marsh student. “It’s helping me read faster,” said another. “I turn up the speed and I’m reading faster in my head—I can hear how I should be reading!”
One student’s fluency scores jumped from 100 words per minute to 136 after one month of silent reading supported by Recorded Books on Playaway.
Mrs. Cord and Mrs. McGrath share a classroom library of Recorded Books on Playaway which allows them to offer audio support without need for a collection of individual cassette players or CD players, because the compact Playaway device plays itself (and nothing else!)—it’s the busy teacher’s recourse for audio technology.
What Can Recorded Books Do for Your Students?
Recorded Books motivate and engage readers of all levels. Struggling and reluctant readers become motivated to enjoy reading and spend more time on task. By improving comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary, Recorded Books can engage ESL students and special needs students in the reading process. Recorded Books audiobooks also expand options and open doors to further learning for advanced students—they are a literacy solution appropriate for all students.
School librarians are among the education leaders—the literacy managers and advocates, who are familiar with the many applications of audiobooks in the classroom. School librarians helped develop the audio strategies that have become common classroom practice over the past several decades. Experienced at research, school media professionals can point to the studies demonstrating gains in literacy skills and scores for students who make use of a recorded books scaffold on the path to independent reading.
As collection developers, librarians are old friends of Recorded Books, LLC, because Recorded Books offers more titles for schools unabridged on CD and cassette than any other source. Always proud of its deep K-12 title assortment, Recorded Books has recently extended delivery of its audio resources to the classroom-friendly Playaway. Recorded Books on Playaway—digital, hand-held players that come pre-loaded, each with one audiobook—make the motivational quality of audio, and its versatility, even more accessible to students.
The above case studies from schools around the country involve audio support as a powerful educational methodology. Imagine how you might take advantage of recorded books for your ESL students, in social studies and science, for bibliotherapy, in fitness programs, and other applications.
Please visit http://recordedbooks.wordpress.com and www.recordedbook.com/school or call (800) 638-1304 for more information and catalogs.
Find Products & Services Online
