[LIT] l have money to spend

[ReadersnRacers at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/11/07 10:17:52 PM, FineArt11 at aol.com writes:


> What is an ELMO?
> 
> 

An Elmo is one brand of document camera that you use similarly to an overhead 
with a LCD projector set-up.   They are expensive, but I'm working on finding 
one.

Do you have CD players and books on CD (that match titles that you have on 
your shelf)?   I invested a portion of my FCAT $ (we figure that we will go back 
down to a C this year & back up to a B next year based on our student 
population - I figure I'll get my document reader then).

I used a couple of hundred to purchase 6 CD players (not anything fancy, just 
a simple cheap CD player) with headphone splitters and headphones.   That way 
I can get upto 36 kids into 6 different books on CD (or tape - I do have some 
on cassette with cassette players).   The rest of the $$ went towards books 
on CD and more book sets for Lit Circles.   My goal is to have audio books to 
go with all my Lit Circle books (or at least those books who have audio 
versions).   The students who use the audio books are required to follow along in 
their novels.   I found several years ago, while teaching intensive reading 
classes, that spending so much time following along with a fluent reader caused my 
kids' fluency to shoot way up.   Plus they were sooooo much more engaged with 
the literature and really got far more into the book discussions.   I think 
that by listening to the book while following along in text form allowed them 
the chance to process it with far more ease - many of my readers would spend so 
much time decoding and reading sentences that by the time they got to the end 
of the pages, they were clueless as to what was happening in the plot.



Pam Tempest
Team Neon-6th Gr. ELA
Hudson Middle School
http://nlcommunities.com/communities/tempest

"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as 
that every child should be given the wish to learn." John Lubbock