Going Digital: Using e-Book Readers to Enhance the Reading Experience

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

Digital readers, or e-book readers, are devices that can host hundreds of electronic books. In this introductory lesson and subsequent minilessons, students will read e-books and learn how to use many tools and features on a digital reader to support literacy learning. In particular, students learn how to manipulate the font size and page orientation to suit their individual needs and preferences, highlight text to mark key passages, insert notes in response to the text, access a built-in dictionary to develop new vocabulary and word consciousness, and use a text-to-speech feature to practice reading fluency. By recording and reviewing the students’ use of these tools and features, teachers can learn much about their students’ skills and progress as readers.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

Digital Reader Tools and Features Anecdotal Record: Teachers use this form to record students’ use of tools and features on a digital reader.

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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.

• When having access to digital readers, students use new literacy skills and strategies to envision and retrieve the potential of the digital device.
  
  
• Electronic books extend connections between readers and text as engagement with and manipulation of text 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.

• Electronic 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 participate in spontaneous and ongoing literature response.

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