After serious thought, teacher discussion and hours of research and preparation I have decided to order six Kindles for our library. We currently have one Kindle that I check out to teachers. When I took over the library this summer I found it in the box in the back of a filing cabinet. What a wonderful surprise. I took it home and loaded it down with free books. I put it on display at the electronic gadget petting zoo and generated my first customer for the Kindle.
One of our superb resource teachers came to me after checking out the Kindle and said that her students have asked her, "What do I have to do to be able to read on the Kindle?" She said that one particular reluctant/resistant reader borrowed the Kindle during class and sat still for an extended time reading "Call of the Wild." Hearing this prompted me into action. The seed for this idea was planted a while ago when I read this article about Kathy Parker's Kindle program in School Library Journal. My thought further took hold of me after reading Buffy Hamilton's posts about her Kindle purchases and the related post by Joyce Valenza and her plan to use Kindles for research on reading motivation. I attended the webinar hosted by Kathy Parker called "How to Start an eReader Program at Your School". Unfortunately this webinar was not recorded but she gave some excellent, practical tips. I have found Edukindle to be another excellent resource for those considering or currently including Kindles in the library.
With these wonderful ladies paving the way I felt it was a good time to jump in and give it a try. How can I say no to students that "will do anything to read on the Kindle"?
I funded these purchases with a generous donation from our student council Penny Wars fundraiser. Our student council raised over $1,000. I feel like this is an excellent investment. I created a short survey for the reading resource students to take on reading motivation and interests. I plan to compare these survey results and MAP, Lexile and PASS scores from the beginning of the year with the end of the year scores and survey answers. If we see a positive impact then we can justify further Kindle purchases.
I will post updates as the program progresses. Our first three should arrive this Thursday. I am excited to begin this adventure.
Awesome opportunity for you, your students, and your teachers to boost reading. I envy you. I'm looking forward to being able to roll out our Freshman Academy iPod grant and having the Kindle and other reading apps added to them. I have a feeling the students are going to love the ability to read on "their" iPods.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely interested in how you are going to go about collecting data to see if the Kindles are making a difference in students' reading and test scores.
- Heather