This afternoon in the AT&T Classroom, the Wait first graders were introduced to Educreations as a tool to use for reading fluency practice. The term reading fluency refers to the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. Fluency is an important reading skill because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension. When fluent readers read silently, they are able to recognize words automatically so they are able to recognize words and comprehend the meaning at the same time. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding the words, the reader can focus his/her attention on the meaning of the text/words and make connections among the ideas in the text to their own background knowledge. In contrast, less fluent readers must focus their attention on figuring out the words, leaving them little attention for understanding the meaning of text. Today the students learned to use Educreations for fluency practice. Educreations is a free multi-platform tool that allows the device to record the student’s voice and his/her writing and drawing which can be saved for playback and/or shared online. Within the Educreations app, the students used the camera to take a photo of the assigned reading passage and then used the app’s microphone to record themselves reading the passage aloud. The app allows the students and teacher to be able to play back & listen to the passage to assess reading fluency. Educreations can also be used to create stories, animations, and multimedia projects and presentations.
