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eBook Paper

Laura Hagenbaugh

University of Kansas
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eBook

http://bookbuilder.cast.org/view.php?op=view&book=133585&page=1

Description of Readers

My readers for this eBook are students in grade five but are reading at a second or third

grade reading level. They are relatively strong in decoding words but struggle with sight words.

Their fluency is developing while still below grade level; their vocabulary is basic and does not

contain many content-specific and technical vocabulary. With the intersection of these issues,

the students often have trouble comprehending grade level texts.

According to Ehri and McCormick (2006), these students are in the consolidated-

alphabetic phase of word learning. “The important acquisition at this phase involves learning

chunks of letters that recur in different words and how they are pronounced...The value of

these chunks is that they facilitate word decoding accuracy and speed as well as sight word

learning” (Ehri, 2006, p. 154). As aforementioned, the readers of this ebook have decoding

words as a relative strength and are challenged by sight words. It seems that this is the most

appropriate phase as it is the bridge between their strength and challenge.

Topic and Reason for Selection

The topic of this ebook is world religions. I originally planned to do early human

migrations but found that a few of my current students are in the consolidated-alphabetic

phase and are starting a unit in their humanities classes about world religions; my former

school also has a unit later in the year where students explore different world religions. I felt

that this was a good opportunity for the book to actually be used for authentic student

learning. Additionally, there are content-specific words that are repeated throughout the text
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which I thought would help students in practicing and retaining new vocabulary as well as

providing practice in decoding words and practicing sight words.

Common Core State Standards

This eBook worked in conjunction with many common core state standards, namely

three. CCSS.ELA.-LITERACY.RF.5.3 is to “know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis

skills in decoding words.” This standard requires students to know letter-sound

correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology to achieve grade-level phonics.

Throughout the ebook, the coaches guide students in how to decode longer, multi-syllabic

words by breaking them into phonemes and morphemes, depending on the word. This

chunking reminds and encourages readers to first identify the letter-sound correspondences

and then blend those into a recognizable word. It is after the blending that they can address

the meaning of the word.

The second standard is CCSS..ELA-LITERACY.RF.5.4 “read with sufficient accuracy and

fluency to support comprehension.” As this ebook is an informational text, the goal is to inform

students and have them retain new information and tie that to their prior knowledge.

Knowing that the targeted students are below-level readers, I used many words in the students

sight vocabularies because the content of world religions requires new words that students

may not know how to pronounce. Many of these words are derived from languages other than

English, which present obvious challenges. Having students maintain a high-rate of accuracy

and fluency is in service of supporting comprehension. For this reason, word choice outside of

the new vocabulary was intentionally limited.

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Lastly, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.5.2 is to “determine two or more main ideas of a text and

explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.” The world religions ebook

is divided into sections based on religion. This is to help students categorize information and

show them how the details of the text apply to the same main ideas. Likewise, the book begins

with an introduction to what the word religion generally means so that the readers see that all

five of the religions addressed fall under the umbrella of world religions.

Images and Print Features

In Yokota and Teale’s (2014) article, they discuss the opportunities and limitations of

newly popular ebooks. They also provide guidance on what to look for in an ebook or construct

in your own digital books for the utmost benefit of the reader. In reference to text appearance,

“some productions deliberately choose to be artistic in text appearance, utilizing lettering that

looks intriguing and different or digital features...but they end up being not so supportive for

children’s early literacy skill development.” (Yokota, 583) For this reason, I was careful to stick

to a basic font and choose font size based on the size of the picture and amount of space on the

page.

In the same article, illustrations and animations are discussed. Educators and authors

are encouraged to use these to enhance meaning and retention for readers. “Well-designed

digital picture books integrate illustration, text, sound, and sometimes also movement so that

each complements the other and, together, they provide a multimedia text experience. The

ability to process and produce multimedia texts is central to what it means to be literature in

the 21st century.” (Yokota, 583) In the world religions ebook, I included images and

illustrations on all but one page. Every image is purposefully selected to illustrate the meaning
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in the related passage. For example, images illustrate the three Hindu gods with descriptions

below. On pages that define churches and synagogues, I included pictures of both so that

students could connect the picture, word, and meaning.

Vocabulary

I found vocabulary to be the most difficult area to implement in this ebook. Of course,

there was more than sufficient vocabulary available to teach, but most research indicates it is

crucial for students to have multiple exposures in different contexts for words to be mastered

and committed to memory. An ebook is one exposure and certainly doesn’t qualify as different

contexts. What I felt I could do is create a very purposeful first exposure to words to start

building student understanding. I was encouraged by Michael Graves when he talked about a

student going from “never heard the word before to having a vague sense of the word’s

meaning, one that is bound to the particular context of the story. Repeated encounters with

this word in a variety of contexts will provide the fuel needed to move this new word along the

continuum until the student knows it well, remembers it, and uses it in a variety of appropriate

contexts” (Graves, 192). I addressed this in my ebook by providing the definition and context

for the word so that students could move from “never heard the word before” along the

continuum.

Word Recognition

As my readers are in the consolidated-alphabetic phase of word recognition, I used

Ehri’s section on instructional implications to guide my support for word recognition. “Students

should learn to break apart multisyllabic words into separate syllables by locating vowel nuclei

and pronouncing each vowel with its adjacent consonants as a separate syllable. Some
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syllables can be read by analogy to familiar words.” (Ehri, 155) As I mentioned in discussing

common core standards, I used the coaches in the ebook to guide students in breaking words

syllable by syllable. Ehri also emphasizes that this is a phase where students are developing

their independence in word recognition so they should go from using strategies with prompts

to independently using strategies. I implemented this in the ebook by encouraging readers to

break down the words by syllables at the beginning of the ebook and less by the end.

Comprehension

As guidance, I used the comprehension continuum used in Harvey’s article

Comprehension at the Core to address multiple levels of comprehension in the book. I used an

adapted and more pointed use of the I Remember strategy which falls in the retelling portion of

the continuum. “Retelling involves short-term recall and understanding a sequence of

events...what we really want is for students to take their thinking further - so that being able to

recount or retell the events of a story or summarize the information is the jumping off point.”

(Harvey, 435) After each section on religions in the ebook, I ask a general comprehension

question of what students learned about the religion. Later on in the book though, I ask more

pointed questions about similarities and differences between religions that requires students to

move into the “merge thinking with content” portion of the comprehension continuum.
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References

Ehri, L. & McCormick, S. (2006). Phases of word learning: implications for

Instruction with delayed and disabled readers. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 35(4), 458-
492.
Graves, M. & Watts-Taffe, S. (2008). For the Love of Words: Fostering Word
Consciousness in Young Readers. The Reading Teacher, 62(3), 185-193.

Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2013). Comprehension at the Core. The Reading Teacher
66(6), 432-439.

Marcell, B. (2011). Putting Fluency on a Fitness Plan. The Reading Teacher, 65(4),
242-249.

Yokota,J. & Teale, W. (2014). Picture Books and the Digital World. The Reading
Teacher, 67(8), 577-585.