As part of their current literacy unit, the Rootstown third graders have been studying poetry. This morning in the AT&T Classroom the students used Talkify to practice reading poetry aloud with expression. Accessible at the ABCya.com website, Talkify is a web-based tool for adding voice to photos. Students are able to use their own images or select from one in the tool’s gallery. The tool guides students through a series of prompts to select and size a mouth and record voice-over for playback.
This morning the Rootstown third graders used Talkify to practice reading poetry aloud with fluency, rhythm, and pace, and using appropriate intonation and vocal patterns to emphasize important elements within the text. Using Talkify’s voice recorder, the students recorded themselves reading a poem from the Giggle Poetry website. Prior to their poetry reading, the students had annotated their poem in Google Docs to mark key words and passages that required emphasis and expression. The students were then able to play back the recording to self-assess their fluency and expression.
