How old were you when you learned to read? Were you reading through shelves of books before you can remember? Or do you remember a long struggle of trying to understand those black marks printed on the page? Reading doesn’t come as easily to some as it does to others. Many children spend hours a day stumbling through word after word and see improvement come very, very slowly.
As any teacher will tell you, every child learns differently. Some learn visually, seeing a word and a picture, and associating them. Some learn better aurally, hearing a word pronounced and seeing it and being able to connect those in their mind. Teaching reading is a complex technique, combining phonics and actual words. Children must be able to recognize letters and words and associate sounds.
Thanks to the development of technology, a new dimension has been added to education. Parents may gripe about the television taking away from time a kid should be spending reading. But some TV shows are focused on teaching a child to learn to recognize words and read. Parents also gripe about video games and computer games taking hours and hours of mindless time in a child’s life. But many educational programs have been developed.
Kids that grow up using technology will learn better using a medium that they are used to. So yes, this includes educational software. So what should a teacher in a classroom do to implement technology into her teaching style?
Well, to start, she could have the school buy one of many great software titles. But an especially motivated teacher may take the time to develop her own reading program, designed to fit the needs of the students in her school. This program could be copied onto several bulk flash drives that students could insert in their computers in a classroom.
The program wouldn’t have to be super-complex; some possible elements may include interactive quizzes that involve hearing a word and clicking the right sound, or seeing a word and clicking the right picture. The teacher could include landmarks that the students may be familiar with locally or even use names of students in that classroom for a personal touch.
CF Gear consults with clients to develop the best flash drive solution for their unique situations. Clients can pick from several designs of flash drives (perhaps the teacher may want to pick something colorful and fun-shaped for the students) and can have them imprinted or engraved with a logo (the school’s logo and maybe the title of the reading program).
Students learning to read will appreciate a cool colorful school flash drive loaded with a fun program to test their skills. This technology may inspire them more to push themselves and want to read!