"Instant Photo Books"

The Challenge: From the onset, a child's first brush with reading needs to be supported with projects that help develop h/her foundation for English literacy skills. This is particularly true of reluctant readers. In guiding her 40 kindergarten students in this learning process, Ms. Harshman wanted to combine creativity with technology, thereby, introducing several modalities into the literacy program.

The Solution: Ms. Harshman took pictures of the young students during field trips, assemblies, special events as well as classroom studies. Aided by a digital camera, a color printer and classroom computer, she selected high frequency words and patterned text to add captions to the pictures. The result was a personal emergent reading book for each child. These books were shared with the class by using an overhead projector, posted on a class website and then sent home to the families. By combining these elements, students increased their understanding of concepts about print and sound/symbol relationships. Comprehension skills through picture clues were enhanced with a demonstrated increase in their vocabulary as well as the ability to read patterned text.

Accomplishments: The Instant Photo Books were the most popular books chosen by the students. This helped instill in them an early interest in reading. All of the students met the kindergarten exiting reading standards, with 90 percent exceeding these standards. Students seemed more engaged and excited to read and there was an increase in parent/child reading partnerships from previous years. Of particular note, one father stated how much more connected he felt with his child when he was away on a Navy deployment. He was able to logon to the classroom website and see his child's classroom activities or fieldtrips by reading the photo books.