Tech Talk: Can You Build Fluency and have FUN with iPads?

This is my first year using iPads in the classroom and I’m slowly playing around with different apps and testing them out with kiddos.  I want my students using apps that are meaningful and I want my kiddos creating, rather than just “playing.”

The Reading Specialist in my is always looking for fun ways to build fluency. If you walk into my class during a phonics lesson, you’ll probably hear my kiddos practicing their phonics pattern in a robot voice or even a ghost voice.  You’ll see us sprawled out on bamboo mats reading books at our reading level.  You’ll even find some of my friends sitting in beach chairs in our class library.  We love building fluency with our poetry anthology, because poems are lots of FUN!

We read, and read, and read any chance we get.  

So, can you build fluency and have fun with iPads?  I’ll let you be the judge!

I first heard about Chatter Pix from Learning with Mrs. Parker over on Instagram.  I immediately fell in love and knew I just HAD to use this with my kiddos the day we returned from break.  Long story short, Chatter Pix gives a voice to pictures.   I knew we could use this in so many ways!

For this lesson, I pulled kiddos over during Guided Reading.  We talked about our goals for the New Year.  Each kiddo wrote a quick complete sentence in their daily journal {We just wrote one sentence because I was going to compile their goals into a class video to share with their parents.  You can DEFINITELY use this to record an entire story}. As they illustrated, I worked one-on-one with one of my friends to create their Chatter Pix.  See a quick clip of the final video and get inspired!

Chatter Pix has cartoon drawings you can choose from, you can have kiddos draw a picture and use that (think self portrait), or real life photos.  I love that there are so many options. 

*If you were teaching your kiddos about penguins, you could have kiddos draw a penguin during an art lesson.  Or, have them find a photo of a penguin.  Then, have them record penguin facts or they could write a story about a penguin.*

For privacy reasons, I can’t share the adorable compilation video of goals, but I can share this little clip of the entire process.

The possibilities are endless.  My friends have been using it to practice their weekly sight words and then they share it with the class.  Not only is my friend practicing, but the entire class will get more exposure to the words as well!  Have friends practice poetry, reading passages, decodable books, and writing.

Build fluency by having your friend choose a photo and record.  Then, have them choose another photo and record again.  Next, have them repeat the process.  You can have them do this until they’ve created several videos.  They’ll be having so much fun using their imagination that they won’t even realize that they’re learning.

So I’ll ask you again…can you build fluency and have fun with iPads?  I know we sure did with this great app!