Digital Story Telling

Motivating Readers with Interest Charts

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Digital Story Telling

Motivating Readers with Interest Charts

KTankersley — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:20:18 +0000

If you are looking for ways to motivate children to improve their writing and thinking skills, consider having students produce digital stories. A digital story is a multi-media text consisting of pictures and video clips embedded in a document like a Power Point that is enhanced by a narrated soundtrack that tells the story. According to the research of Burn and Reed (1999) digital story telling can be a great motivator for even the most reluctant of reader. Digital story telling can be used for presenting both fiction as well as non-fiction text on a topic of interest in the content classroom. Digital story telling helps students organize their thinking, have a purpose for writing, and develops pride and self-confidence as the completed work is shared with other students. Digital story telling can be done either in groups or by individuals and even the most reluctant reader and writer will be motivated to complete a digital story project.

KTankersley — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:45:27 +0000

Get students interested in monitoring their own reactions to text by asking them to rate each chapter of a book they are reading on an “interest level” chart. After reading each chapter, students color in the bar to indicate how interested they were in the text of that chapter. Students can then discuss their reactions and what they liked or didn’t like about the various chapters of the book.

My Interest

Level

Wow – I hate to put it down! This was an exciting and interesting chapter.

Good – An Interesting chapter. I enjoyed it!

Ok – but not the best chapter I’ve ever read

So-So – Gave good info but didn’t interest me much.

Boring – I think this chapter should be left out of the book.