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One Best Thing: iPad Enhanced Reading Interventions: Developing Adolescent Readers
by Jeanne Halderson

My career goal is to be a middle school social studies and special education teacher.  I will interact with developing adolescent readers which is why I decided to read this One Best Thing.

Ms. Halderson is a seventh grade teacher in Wisconsin and reading specialist for her school.  She used her “ardent knowledge of technology integration and iPad in the regular education classroom” (One Best Thing: iPad Enhanced Reading Interventions) to extend her classroom for her struggling readers.  Her One Best Thing iBook includes definitions of the goals she was trying to achieve, researched based reading strategies, examples of her students performing the strategies, as well as reflections of her intervention from her and her students.

Ms. Halderson noticed her kids that slipped through the cracks.  She describes them as the students who do not read a grade level but do not qualify for special services.  Literacy is critical for middle and high schools.  It is assumed that students have developed the necessary fluency in elementary school.  Some students need to help assisted support in developing fluency.  Noticing the need for her “fall through the crack students” Ms. Halderson developed resources and assignment that her students could take home, access, interact, and complete via iPad at home.

Example of strategies described with video example

Her resources and assignments were loaded with research based reading strategies including teacher read aloud, think aloud, echo reading, duet reading, repeated reading, sustained silent reading, choral reading, partner and group reading.   All of these strategies were described along with their benefits, many included visual and audio examples of the strategy in use by students.

Ms. Halderson created a action research project in her classroom to test how effective her iPad reading resources would be.  Results showed improvement in her students who used iPads versus a control group who did not use iPad to complete reading strategies.  Students who took iPads home to receive reading strategy instruction said that Ms. Halderson iPad idea was like “taking the teacher home with [me]” (One Best Thing: iPad Enhanced Reading Interventions).  Ms. Halderson said students took home the direct instruction of her class and could repeat content as many times as needed to work on mastery.  In class, her students could work on higher order thinking and activities that applied the information they gained at home.  She was worried her students would not do the activities at home but many, if not all, did and gained from the experience.

I noticed the value of integrating media into the lesson during my Block I Summer STEM Institute experience.  You can read about my iPad integration here and about my reflection on it’s impact on my students.  Ms. Halderson reinforces my belief that technology in the classroom is more engaging.  I can use the reading strategies and methods that she outlined in her One Best Thing iBook.  The strategies will be applicable both in my social studies and special education classrooms.  Social Studies requires a lot of reading.  I can help my students acquire general and historical fluency skills by adapting my curriculum to meet their needs via technology/iPad.  With a little extra effort on my part, I can extend an otherwise boring/daunting historical lesson to my students.

Graphic showing student response to iPad reading strategies

Perhaps, I can spark a little passion for history as well!  In my special education classroom, research based strategies will be a requirement for me to use daily.  Integrate technology into my special education classroom will most likely increase engagement for my students.  I look forward to integrating technology into my classroom and learning more ways in which I can use technology to extend learning to my students.