Growing+the+Garden

When this project was presented to me I was positive I would not be able to plan something that would work for kindergarten students. However, as noted in __Literacy, Technology,and Diversity Teaching for Success in Changing Times__, "projects generally required no special computer programs but rather used the common functionalities available on most modern computers".(p110) I find this to be true as even I was able to create a "wiki'" page. The idea for this wiki is that students will see books that other students read and enjoyed and read them also. It is also a lot more fun to end books online than on some paper list. I think that once the students know that they can use the computer to add books to a list that all students can see they will get excited about reading a book. The more they read the more they hone their skills at reading, become more familiar with words, sentence structure, and fluency. Also by adding the 'Make your own Garden" link they will want to read their book and add it so that they can play in this area of the 'wiki'. This is my way of capturing their attention and getting them to pick up a book. This activity can then lead to book discussions on a class level or on a peer to peer level. It also helps to prepare in a very basic way for book reports, readers' theater, or oral reviews on books. Since I have started this "wiki" halfway through the year I will ask parents to send in the information so that I can observe the students using it and decide if it needs to be tweaked in any way to make it easier for my students to navigate. It would be wonderful if I had to add more pages to accommodate more lines in the Book Garden. I now feel comfortable enough that I could and would design other wiki pages for my class to use. I might even try to design something that could be used on the interactive whiteboard. In this early form of a book review the students are making suggestions of books for others to read by saying whether they liked it or not. In many of the websites I visited that included tips for getting children to read I found that giving a review was on the lists of several. One of these, Family Education.com listed it in the top five. This wiki will most likely evolve with time as I am already thinking of changes to make and things to add.

Cummins, Brown, Sayers. Literacy, Technology and Diversity: Teaching For Success In Changing TImes http://school.familyeducation.com/reading-fun/parenting/38335.html