The power and possibilities from Microsoft’s Immersive Reader are endless. So where do you start? How can we get this into the hands of “littles,” who will definitely benefit from it?
Teaching writing in primary grades is a tough job. Every student is in a different place, and more often than not, the first student done hasn’t used complete sentences. It’s times like this that we wish we could clone ourselves. If you’ve ever had to deal with this, then you know the feeling. So, during one our recent writing assignments, I had the students take their rough draft, and then type it into Word Online. I didn’t check the drafts, I didn’t ask anyone to show me ahead of time, I just explained that they were to type it once they finished. This was a pretty edgy idea, and I was nervous watching it all go down. Once the kids had everything typed out, I taught them how to open Immersive Reader. This allowed them to hear back exactly what they wrote. If there were mistakes, they could hear them being read. Then I showed them how to go back and make edits. Here’s an example of how it looked:
But wait...it gets better. Each student in my class has a copy of this desk sized guide. We use this with crayons, so the kids can see if they are working towards a “4” (or an A+) in writing. So now that they have fixed their mistakes, they can check to see if they have used things like adjectives to enhance their work. Click here, or the image below to download a copy for free!
The students change the colors to match the rubric, and then Immersive Reader will identify the various parts of speech. It’s amazing!
Now my students have a piece that has been edited, and it’s ready to be “published,” all done independently. But, if you know me, you know I LOVE app smashing. So, I taught my students to transform the Word file to a webpage, which “app smashes” the work into Microsoft Sway. What started out as a simple writing piece, turned into a published website, completely designed by first graders.
These projects were then shared out on Seesaw for my families to see. Now, my class engagement during writing is up, and the students are excited about being able to share their work with the world - all thanks to Microsoft. If you have any questions about Immersive Reader, or how we completed this process, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
👓 - J