Nicole's Current Event- Using audibooks to improve literacy

Nicole Dagro Language Arts and Technology Current Event 1 Title: “Turning the Page to a New World; Program leads students with learning disabilities to read.” Author: SHALAMA C. JACKSON Source: CEC SmartBrief Publisher: The State (In South Carolina) Link: http://www.thestate.com/local/story/164945.html Date: September 6, 2007 The article entitled “Turning the Page to a New World,” published in "The State " discusses how audio books can help children with learning disabilities to read. A program has been implemented in South Carolina. This program allows students with learning disabilities to listen to assignments and books. It allows them to follow along with their assignment in textbooks as well as other books. According to the article, this innovation has been a huge success. It has raised students’ confidence, allowed them to read, expand vocabulary, and improve their reading comprehension. The students are now able to read the things their peers are reading. It helps them increase their literacy skills. In this course, we discuss how we can improve the literacy skills of our students while implementing technology. This article provides us with a perfect example of just that. The program is using technology (in this case audio books) to help increase the reading, vocabulary, and comprehension skills of these students. As teachers we look for ways to improve student learning everyday and we need to be aware of tools that can help. This is one tool that can help. I believe this is a great program. Everyday students are left behind and not able to do the same things as their peers because they are not given the tools to do so. These audio books allow the students to complete the same activities as their peers and develop the same skills as their peers. It is so important for students to have a knowledge base in literacy because literacy is the foundation to everything. One cannot really function without these important skills. If these audio books are helping students develop vital skills, then I believe that this is a wonderful and successful program. It should be used in all subjects, not just language arts. Any subject can use it for assignments and reading, including mine; Social Studies. I feel it is a shame that it is not used in more places. Students who need this and other forms of technology should have the access to use it. The only problem with this though is we run into the age old question of “Where is the funding going to come from?”