Week Nine, Thing Twenty-Two

Ah, eBooks and audio books. I had the opportunity to catalog some eBooks that my school recieved free last year, and I am sure I made some mistakes in the process, but I love that some of the canonical classics are available for free and digitally, so that students don't have to purchase books that, let's face it, they would not likely read on their own. Hooray for eBooks!

I was disapointed that the time frame for the World eBook Fair has closed for 2009, so those resources are only available with a subscription until next July. Something to keep in mind as the date approaches, perhaps, and prepare to download whatever I want when the free window opens up again.

Audio books are also a wonderful resource. I have seen them used with great success for students struggling to read at grade level, and in those instances the audio books have opened countless literary doorways that reluctant or struggling readers might never have discovered if they were only provided with the print copy of the text. I try to incorporate audio books into my classroom when appropriate: in fact, when reading Poe's "Tell Tale Heart" just last month, I had my students follow along in the text while listening to a dramatized audio version of the story, complete with creepy music and sound effects. The story seemed to click with more of my students in this way, and the majority of them seemed to retain much more of the information from the story.

I love using audio books with students, and in my dream library I would love to stock the shelves with text and audio copies of some of the more popular and more challenging stories, to better serve the full school population, not just the avid readers. The only difficulty with such an ambition is the money it would cost to purchase audio books, and the expense if such materials were lost by students. Perhaps a PTA grant could fund this idea, and maybe loss could be cut down by teachers providing a few personal cd players so that students could listen to the books while at school.

Something to think about...