Read With Me Fluency

[appimg 635704413]

App Info

Price: [app 635704413] {price}
AppStore User Rating: {stars}[/app]

Overview

The Read With Me Fluency app offers a simple and convenient way to assess student reading to teachers, parents, tutors, and others who need to monitor progress.  The app allows users to administer an informal reading inventory (a common tool) to single students or entire classrooms or groups.

Features include:

• Convenient system for conducting fluency assessment
• Optional companion online system
• Built-in library of passages
• Three passages per grade level
• Grades 1-8, Lexile range 40L to 1270L
• User can add other passages
• Recording and timing options

Quality

The makers of Read With Me Fluency were very thorough in the design of this app, and a foundational understanding of teachers’ needs shines through nearly every aspect.  Designers anticipated lots of different possibilities that users might face, and covered many of them in their directions.  For example, this app allows either online or offline use, and can be used with one or two Ipads.  This flexibility makes the system useful to a vast number of educators, parents, tutors and others who care about children’s reading progress.

Education

Many in educational fields have hungered for a system that would actually decrease the work load required for assessment, and it looks like it’s finally here.  Read With Me Fluency provides a technological assist to an age-old standby for monitoring student progress in reading: the informal reading inventory.  Most traditional inventories are very time consuming to administer, since they must generally be completed in a one-on-one setting.  They are a powerful tool, but usually time and energy limit who can be assessed in this way.

Read With Me Fluency opens the door to efficient assessment in several ways.  It can still be used in the traditional one-to-one setting, but this app can also help teachers, parents and adults assess without direct interaction.  It can do audio recordings of student performance in its offline mode, and video recordings in the online mode.  The teacher or tutor can play these back later to complete the evaluation.

Mark-up for an informal inventory can be challenging, particularly if the person giving the inventory is not familiar with the standard codes and shorthand methods of cataloging errors as students read.  Read With Me Fluency simplifies this process using pop-up menus that are very convenient.

The app comes with 24 stories in its library (grades 1 through 8, Lexile 40L through 1270L), and users can also upload their own passages.  The reporting system has many options for analysis and presentation of the data, which is very convenient for preparing reports for different audiences.

Entertainment

Though the system isn’t inherently designed to be entertaining, it has several features that students will enjoy.  The built-in passages are engaging.  The ability to add your own content will allow teachers to personalize the assessment process by uploading stories for specific students.

The app’s ability to record student’s reading can also be a plus in students’ eyes.  Many find the process of recording themselves to be intrinsically appealing, and some enjoy comparing “then” and “now” recordings to document their own progress.

Value

This app is a great value.  Purchase allows users free access to the online site, and together they form a powerful tool for assessing young readers.  Professionals can make their own informal reading inventories, which is time consuming, or purchase commercial versions with some investment.  Compared to the price of most inventories, this app is extremely economical, and when you factor in the convenience and time saving aspects, it’s a must-have for any reading teacher’s collection.

Child Friendliness

This app is intended for supervised use, but it is very child-friendly.  There is no outside advertising, no links to social media, and no direct access to the internet.  Young users can access the teacher directions and the set up pages from the home screen, and perhaps even choose their own reading passages, but since it is intended for supervised use, that wouldn’t seem to be a problem.  If the online system is used, students must enter a token provided by their adult mentor before getting started.