Originally posted by Danny on September 14, 2019
One example of mobile learning which I have found to be very effective for most students is Raz-Kids, the reading component of the Learning A-Z suite of online educational resources.
Raz-Kids is a mobile app that students download onto a tablet or device and teachers manage from the Reading A-Z website. Raz-Kids offers a large and ever-expanding repository of digital books which are leveled in a similar manner as other systems (Fountas and Pinnell, Lexile, etc.). After assessing a student’s reading level via running record or existing data, the teacher can assign each student to their own reading level. Students then have access only to books that are at or slightly above their current level (this can be adjusted by the teacher). After reading a leveled book, students complete a comprehension quiz and, as comprehension improves, the student ‘levels-up’ to the next reading level.
The books are highly suitable to both the age and interest levels (with engaging illustrations) and the reading tasks are incentivized by awarding stars with which students can build and decorate their own robot.
Parents are invited to access their child’s account in order to track activity and progress and to send messages of encouragement. The teacher can view digital reports showing areas of mastery and areas for improvement. Individualized tasks can be assigned based on these data.
This app is consistently one of the most popular in my classroom. Students often see it as a reward when they are given time to use the app, and they take great pride in their progress (most can remember their Raz-Kids level from the previous grade when we are setting up levels at the beginning of the year). Likewise, parents greatly appreciate having a turnkey solution for supporting their child’s reading progress at home.
Some other features of Raz-Kids include:
- Feature to assign and record running records
- Interactive tool for annotating content
- Directly linked to state or provincial standards/expectations
- Multilingual selection of books
Some potential drawbacks of Raz-Kids:
- The leveling system can create pressure from parents if a student is not at ‘grade-level’, shifting the focus from differentiated instruction and individual progress to reaching a ‘standard’ level of performance
- No forum for dialogue or interaction between students
I taught primary last year and found this app useful to my students. I like how it allows students to access books at their reading level. My students have enjoyed working towards earning stars and advancing to read harder books as they progressed in reading. I particularly liked how my beginning readers were provided with scaffolding through listening to the story being read to them before reading independently. I recommended Raz-Kids to parents who were planning to travel abroad during the summer. Instead of having to carry multiple reading books with them, all they needed was a mobile device and the Raz-Kids app. Although it is a great app, it is not free. Parents have to pay if the school doesn’t provide students with their accounts. I believe this app is an effective learning tool with somewhat limited accessibility due to its high cost.
As a middle school teacher my knowledge of Raz-Kids is quite limited, although I have a little knowledge of it from being in charge of the school iPads and having to download it for classroom use. However, I was recently introduced to it a lot more from my daughter who is in grade 1. One aspect I was impressed with was how the app worked with the level of the student’s reading. I should note though that my daughter did realize that she can choose easier books, so we do have to make sure she is choosing books at her level. At a student level, my daughter gets really excited when she receives stars from her teacher, which has increased my daughter’s desire to read more. As my wife and I are both teachers, there have been a few times when we are working with students and my daughter has been able to go and use Raz-Kids to develop her reading.
As a primary teacher, I strongly encourage the use of Raz-Kids to support the reading process. Reading is a tough skill to teach, especially remotely. Since we began distance education, Raz-Kids has been a great way to get levelled books into the hands of my little learners. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it includes the feature which allows students to record themselves while reading, because this has helped me monitor their progress. In the classroom, I’ve noticed that children often choose books that are too difficult for them to read. Though it’s nice to see them taking on a challenge, it’s important for them to read at their designated level most of the time. Raz-Kids allows students to practice exploring reading material that is tailored to their abilities. Over the past several weeks, students in my class have noted that they like getting stars in Raz-Kids because they can use them to build their robot. Incentives are a great way to support the learning process. I see the potential limitations of this mobile learning aid, but I don’t believe that they outweigh the rewards that it has to offer.