Dial-a-Story!
Using Classroom Telephones to Support Reading Aloud (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 1: Beginning LiteracyStage 2: Consolidation / Fluency
Ages:
5-8
Grade Range:
PreK K 1st 2ndFood Groups:
Primary: Motivation for Literacy, Classroom Tips Secondary: Phonemic Awareness
Transcript
Children love to pretend that they're speaking on a phone while their reading their books independently. What these phones do is that they amplify their voice so that the student can hear their voice very loudly and clearly. They're really great for practicing fluency and expression. On top of that they're fantastic for drowning out background noise for those students who have some difficulty concentrating while a lot of other students are reading independently beside them. Students love to read their writing into these phones. So they'll read a sentence and then at writing center they'll use them to read the sentence back into them again, to listen to how their sentence sounds. We think in kindergarten it's really important that children develop a knowledge of their phonemes or their corresponding letter sounds. And these phones are fantastic for that because they really allow the children to hear the sound that they're making when they're pronouncing their letter sounds. Sometimes the child thinks they're actually making the correct sound, but when they actually listen to themselves inside of the phone they realize AH! Maybe that wasn't right after all. And they quickly correct themselves. These are a really, really cheap gimmick, you can basically purchase the pipe for about $2 and the cord for a dollar. So basically for $3 you could have one of these phones in your room.
Activity Objective
The goal of Dial a Story!: Classroom Telephones to Support Reading Aloud (Virtual Tour) (Virtual Tour) is to promote the enjoyment of books and appreciation for the usefulness of reading and writing by using a simple tool to amplify students' voices while reading.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- To make these engaging tools for your students look for plumber's pipe at your local hardware store.
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Writers' Wall: Displaying Children's Work to Motivate and Assess Writing (Virtual Tour)
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