Intro to e-books

Notes from video taken while children were hearing the audiobook of the Itsy Bitsy Spider played on Storia by Scholastic. The pictures are just like that in the paperback book they are just on the screen of my Samsung tablet and the book is narrated and sung while the pages are turned.

(As the video is playing on the tablet in one hand, I have the camera in the other hand trying to capture these moments.)

As the book starts the children don't know what to expect... there is a lot of interest and the sound effects make the children laugh... they are so excited that they start standing and get scoldings from the older boys as they can't see... Seche (the boy in the red shirt) gets very bothered by the children standing but eventually goes back to enjoying the story...

The children have their attention glued to the e-book and are very amused by the main character of our story. They repeat certain words and point out things that they see as it is being read.

How many children can you fit around one 10 inch tablet???

 

After the video ended they continued to listen to the story. At the end the e-book ends with the song of the itsy bitsy spider. These children love anything set to music so they sang right along. I taught them the hand motions and they worked at trying to figure out the fine motor movements of putting the thumb and forefinger together.

Reflection: I thoroughly enjoyed observing both of these new experiences for these children. Their excitement and amusement is priceless. These type of things are old hat to the children that I have worked with in Hawaii so to see this desire and passion for books in the eyes of these little ones is exciting for me as a teacher. I am looking forward to continuing this reading time long after the research is finished. I have already seen the desire to read more in a couple of the older boys. When I told Seche that Mamma Kimberly would bring him out a book on pirates/pilots... his face lit up. He asked “It is a small one that I can read?”... His confidence in reading the written word is increasing and he is willing to try new words that he has never seen before. I am also seeing that if you build off the interests of the children that they are more apt to give you their full undivided attention.