Kindles and the text-to-speech feature
positively a;ected my students’ test
performance.
Perhaps the best indicator of all is
that I have received emails from parents informing me that their children
are asking for Kindles as holiday gi;s.
Rather than the usual, “Do we have to read today?”
my students began to ask, “Do we get to read today?”
never “requested” a class period to read
quietly before. I was overwhelmed with
the high interest these devices brought
to my students.
Initially, I did not allow my students
to remove the Kindles from the classroom. When I had a student request
one from in-school suspension, I
caved. He ;nished his entire book
while in detention. As we approached
the semester break, another student
begged me to take a Kindle home
so he could ;nish his book. I caved
again. ;is was likely the ;rst time
this student had ever wanted to ;nish
a book. He returned the Kindle on
Monday unscathed.
Enjoying the Results
One of the most memorable e-reader
moments involved a student who fre-
quently missed class due to discipline
infractions and o;en threatened to
drop out of school. One morning I
was headed down the hallway, and I
heard him yell out, “Hey, Ms. White-
side, are we reading our Kindles to-
day?” I assured him we were, and he
continued, “I was lying awake in bed
last night and thinking about what
might happen next in my book. ;en
I thought of something that I was
sort of confused about, and I called
Bella to ask her, since she had already
;nished reading it. We talked about
the book for a long time.” His next
comment went right to my core. He
said, “You know, I have never looked
forward to coming to school, espe-
cially staying through to the end of
the day. But now, I get kind of excited
about reading my book, and I want to
be here!”
Even more impressive were the
students’ passing rates on summative
assessments designed to test students’
mastery of the state standards. ;e
prior year, my small-group resource
class had a collective passing rate of
20%, which was typical for students
reading two years below grade level.
;is year, a;er seven months with the
Kindles, my resource students earned
a collective passing rate of 70% on
their tests. In my 19 years of teach-
ing exceptional learners, I have never
encountered such dramatic results. I
am con;dent the opportunity to use
E-Readers Continue to Engage
One fear I had was that the novelty
of the Kindles would eventually wear
o;. I began this year teaching the
same group of students. I decided to
use the Kindles as the delivery device
for my course novels, in addition to
the self-selected novels the students
would read. Our ;rst e-book was
Lord of the Flies, and the students
maintained their enthusiasm for using the electronic readers. ;ey have
already submitted book requests for
me to download, including textbooks
in electronic format. ;e students
reported they preferred using Kindles
because they were o;en intimidated
by the number of pages or thickness
of printed books.
;e recent release of the Kindle
Fire, which functions as an e-reader
and tablet, o;ers even greater opportunity to engage students with
the tools that inspire them. It costs a
bit more—twice the price of a Kindle
Touch—but o;ers color illustrations,
apps, and the ability to search the web.
With e-books, reading becomes fun
and engaging. Despite cognitive limits
in decoding words and comprehending print, they are able to “listen” to an
electronic reader and develop literacy.
—Gigi Whiteside, EdS, is an assistive technology specialist for Fulton County, Georgia, USA.
She has also taught at Milton High School in
Alpharetta, Georgia. She is a member of the
Striving Reader Grant Committee, supporting
targeted schools through digital literacy.
