I came across an article in a Reading Teacher journal which I thought was very interesting. It involved the creation of an image library by teachers of Pierce (Elementary) School. The images are being used by the school community as illustrations or prompts to create e-books. The e-books created are then viewed on screen, posted online, emailed home or printed and bound.
I think this is a wonderful idea. It appears to me to be a very creative extension of the tried and true language experience approach because the school community provides common experiential knowledge which in itself can be motivating because all students will have the required background knowledge. The creation of these books will therefore be meaningful, authentic and of high interest to the students. The teachers who pioneered this activity found that it was useful for all grade levels and for students of all proficiencies in English.
Creating text about school community allows readers to focus on generating and decoding those words and phrases often included in texts that are not familiar to them (Gabriel& Gabriel, 2010 p.679).....Using computers to write stories and access to digital images gives all students experiences with technology that they may not have access to at home (Tapscot, 1998 in Gabriel and Gabriel, 2010 p.679). Here are a few suggestions from the article on how the school community photos can be used.
• Alphabet books
• Vocabulary books
• Biographies of people, animals or places around the school
• Compare- and-contrast paragraphs, essays and graphs
• Interviews
• News stories
Gabriel, R. &Gabriel,M. (2010, May) .Power in Pictures: How a Schoolwide Photo library can build a Community of Readers and Writers. The Reading Teacher 63(8) pp.679-682.
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