 Many of my reading students can read, but do not.  As they continue through school, their reading abilities weaken further. The dichotomy between their reading level and the required reading level grows.  This can have a dramatic impact on students’ future education.

 Video newscasts to build schema  Virtual tours to guide students through the novels  Audio books with listening station  Audio recordings of book discussions  PowerPoint for final project

 Teacher observation  Student questionnaire  Photographs  Student reflections  Teacher journal  Record of the number of pages students’ read  Analysis of group discussions

 Using the computer improved motivation and quality of work  Audio books kept students motivated, focused, and increased fluency  Audio recordings of group discussions helped students stay focused and improved quality  Technology changed their attitudes  IEP Behavior Disorder read 130 pages first quarter and 3,644 pages during the study.  The 25 students read 19,101 pages

My favorite part of the lit. circles is when we work on the computer. I love to make presentations on it because I can take my ideas and turn them into reality. I wish that all of the things we did included working on the computer. - Student 2’s journal

I can never concentrate or question while I read, so the CD helped me quite a bit. - Student 3’s Journal I like the tape, but I wish we had it a lot more because it helped me understand the book better. - Student 4’s Journal A bad thing about the book on tape is it is too slow. Student 6’s Questionairre

The discussions were definitely the best part. I don’t like writing that much and it was much easier to explain where I could use tone to get my message across. - Student 5’s Journal My favorite part was responding because I got to hear what other people thought about the book. - Student 6’s Journal The discussions weren’t that much fun, but it let me know how much I actually know about the book. - Student 3’s Journal I didn’t like the discussions because they were really boring and not as much fun as other things. _ Student 7’s Journal

What I liked about literature circles was the computer, groups, and book. I think it is a cool idea and so fun. - Student 8’s Journal It was a lot of fun, and it help me understand a lot of things that if they didn’t have those materials, I probably never understood. - Student 9’s Questionairre