In recent years, while the computer has gone from a schoolhouse novelty to an invaluable teaching tool, Julie Wood has researched how twenty-first century technologies can help all students achieve full literacy. In Literacy Online, she demonstrates how strategically employing your classroom's computer can help you find new solutions to a perennial challenge faced by every elementary teacher: engaging and encouraging struggling students while developing their reading and writing skills.
All you need to do is get students to the keyboard, then Literacy Online's practical suggestions for using computers will develop underachieving students' literacy skills in a project-based environment rich with meaning. Wood demonstrates how digital-based lessons encourage growth in seven key literacy characteristics:
word recognition
fluency
comprehension
vocabulary
reading and writing across the curriculum
process Writing
motivation.
Literacy Online shares concrete ideas for teaching and planning in support struggling students as well as guidelines for evaluating the helpfulness of websites and software. In addition, a companion website (http://www.heinemann.com/literacyonline) features reproducible brainstorming sheets and links to successful model programs across the country where the literacy abilities of students have improved dramatically thanks to the integration of technology.
Best of all, Literacy Online is written for any teacher. Technophobes will begin helping emerging readers overcome their difficulties on Monday morning with easy-to-use tips that capitalize on basic skills like word processing, browsing the Internet, and communicating by email, while technophiles will find innovative options to improve students' reading and writing sooner by extending into web design, the use of a variety of computer gadgetry, and even speech recognition software.
She's still learning.
