e-Book Reading and Response: Innovative Ways to Engage with Texts

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

Electronic books, or e-books, provide readers with the opportunity to engage with texts in new and innovative ways. In this multisession lesson, students use computers or digital readers to read and respond to e-books. Students learn how to use e-book tools and features to support their reading processes. In particular, they insert digital notes into a book to record their thoughts and ideas in response to the text. Whole-class and small-group discussions about different types of responses encourage students to broaden their response repertoire. At the end of the lesson, students review their digital notes and fill out handouts that help them reflect on the value of the e-book reading experience and the subsequent response process.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

 

My Digital Notes: Students use this handout to review and reflect on their own response notes.

 

 

Suggested e-Book Resources: This collection of online resources will help teachers locate and learn more about e-books and reader software.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Larson, L.C. (2010). Digital readers: The next chapter in e-book reading and response. The Reading Teacher, 64(1),15-22.

• Readers make sense of reading experiences as they interact and transact with texts.
  
  
• e-Books extend connections between readers and texts as engagement with and manipulation of texts is made possible through electronic tools and features.

 

Larson, L.C. (2009). e-Reading and e-Responding: New Tools for the Next Generation of Readers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 255–258.

• e-Books provide new opportunities and extended possibilities for personal interpretation of and engagement with texts.
  
  
• Digital note-taking features engage students in the reading experience as they participate in spontaneous and ongoing literature response.

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