Special needs teacher Helen: "Readioo's reading pen awakens desire and activity!"
Working as a special education teacher at an adapted primary school with students in grades 1-3 means that the students are at different ages when they learn to read and there are several who have not developed reading fluency during the first years of school. This means that many books are not accessible to them unless they get help from an adult or a digital tool.
In our classroom we have a bag with the Readioo reading pen and some accompanying books. I often get asked by students if they can read with the pen for a while! And the great thing is that they are happy to bring a classmate and sit down and listen together! The reading pen enables independence by allowing students to absorb the books on their own and they can choose what on the page is to be read aloud. It is fantastically fun that you can also tap on the pictures in the books and get descriptions and sound effects! This creates both a desire and motivation to read.
A favorite are the books with words that are in both Swedish and English. The students are curious and want to learn more words in English. They listen and imitate, listen again and repeat! But there are also many more opportunities for language-developing moments in Swedish with Readioo. When the students tap on a picture, they get an explanation of what the character is doing, for example. And by listening to the stories in the books, they are bathed in a variety of different words!
Since the students are the ones who are constantly in control of the reading, they are active in the activity. When there are more than one of them listening at the same time, they let the pen wander between each other. There will be turn-taking and collaboration around a book and reading aloud! And as one student so beautifully said after a reading: I love this pen!
In my teaching, I work a lot in a digital way, I mix the digital with the analog, and that's exactly what Readioo is all about. The digital is a reading pen, but beyond that, everything is analog! The reading experience becomes digital and the students control the reading. It becomes an interactive reading that works so well with the students I meet. The reading pen arouses a desire to read and to learn more!
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Helen Larsson is a special needs teacher in an adapted elementary school and has written, among other things, the book The Digital Classroom. On her popular Instagram, she inspires people to create accessible learning environments for more people where digital and analog are combined.
👉 Follow Helen on Instagram for more inspiration: @mitt_digiloga_klassrum
