Teaching Reading During COVID: Technology With a Purpose by Janel Prinkey

Online Libraries: A Godsend in the Age of Covid

For years in my Reading classroom, I have asked my students to read outside of class for 20 minutes--only on days that end in “y”. Typically, I’m met with one of two reactions: an eager grin that signified “Challenge accepted”, or a coy one that meant “Not going to happen, Ms. Prinkey.” This year was different, not due to the students I teach, but the added obstacle of checking out books to students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every Reading teacher knows that the easier it is for students to find a book to read that interests them, the better chances are that they will actually read it. 

For context, you should know that I am also responsible for maintaining and curating my school’s high school library in addition to my duties and responsibilities as a 7th and 8th grade Reading teacher. The prospect of having to quarantine books after students used them, and having to have students place orders for books, had me almost in tears. Then came a likely solution: signing up for online libraries.

By having my students sign up for the Free Library of Philadelphia, as well as our local library, students no longer had to touch physical copies of books, yet they had access to the latest and greatest much more quickly than they would if they had to wait for me to place an order, wait for the purchase order, process and label the new books, and then check them out to students. The instant gratification was real. 

This is a process I intend to keep moving forward, after COVID-19 has been tamed, through the establishment of our own virtual library. The problem that I ran into this summer when I did my research was that eBooks are expensive! I thought there was no way that our district could afford the kind of experience that I wanted for my students. But then, what felt like a miracle happened--I found the Connected PA/NJ online library consortium! Once my district purchases access for my students this July, I should have close to 3,000 titles for my grades seven through twelve, small school for merely $3,200. Compared to the near $30 per book price of traditional eBook buying, this is a steal. If you do not have the money to subscribe next year, you still get access! This is a unique feature to this consortium, as it allows you to access the titles once you’ve subscribed to them just once, they never go away!

 And that is not considering the program offered through Mackin called Comics Plus which allows simultaneous access to graphic novels and comics for an entire school for under $1,000. With this subscription, and the collections I will purchase through the consortium, I should have access to approximately fifty eBooks per student at my school!  I hope to report back next school year with how successful this process was. Until then: unbridled excitement.

Edpuzzle: A Flipped Classroom, Modern Day Read-Aloud

Another essential component of a Reading classroom is the class read-aloud. In my curriculum, I teach students to differentiate between different genres of both fiction and nonfiction, and often find that I simply do not have time to read aloud in class. Interruptions through announcements and pep rallies sometimes stretch a book out way beyond the three weeks that it should have taken. Enter Edpuzzle.

I decided to ask students to read and work on their independent work in class when I realized that many of them were simply not doing it. By recording myself reading aloud to students and then using Edpuzzle to edit the video and incorporate questions I would ask students in class, I’m realizing something wonderful. Students who would not typically raise their hands are typing their answers in Edpuzzle with fervor. And their experience is richer for it.

I have also been able to read more to the students without the interruptions of daily life at school. Using Edpuzzle, we have read Restart by Gordon Korman, Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and are in the process of reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. After that, I hope to read The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden, and possibly another book before summer!

Our flipped classroom works like this: I assign students one chapter of our current read-aloud (or two if they are short), for a total of about 20 minutes for homework. Then during class we read silently and answer questions about our independent reading books for about twenty minutes. This leaves us with about 20 minutes of our class to be able to work on our skill assignments and writing practice. If there is time left, students scramble to get their headphones, eager for the next chapter of The Hunger Games, no longer giving me that wry smile, but instead enthusiastically participating in our virtual read-aloud. “The Hunger Games was boring at first, but got better toward the middle and end. I’m definitely reading the next one! [Catching Fire]”- An Edpuzzle response from a reluctant reader. It is not a perfect model, but it is working well for us!

I am thankful for both of these technological tools because of their seamless integration into my classroom. They have made a very stressed Reading teacher very happy.

Author Bio: 

Janel Prinkey teaches 7th and 8th grade Reading for a rural school district in Western Pennsylvania. She is an avid reader and writer and enjoys spending time with her Yorkiepoo, Arya. When she is not traveling the world, she is either playing mediocre golf or spending time with her family and friends.