Wonderful Idea Wed.- Voice Recording during reading!

Hello, lovelies! Today's linky from Freebielicious is Wonderful Idea Wednesday!

My wonderful idea is something that one of my teammates started doing two years ago, and got the rest of us to do last year. I am not sure if it was all her idea, or if she saw it somewhere else, but I want to share because I will most certainly be using it again! (P.S. I am part of the 1st grade team)

Are you ready?

Use voice recorders for students to record themselves reading! Then, have them play it back to themselves to listen for fluency! Also, you can then listen back as well (preferably with the student, but you can do it whenever too) so you can hear if they are fluent yet or not!

I had students read a "Just Right" book at least 3 times (OUT LOUD), and when they are fluent they get their recorder and read their book into it. Then, they have to listen back to hear if they really are fluent or if they need more practice. I also had them check in with me, and I would listen to part of the recording to check for fluency as well.

They LOVE recording. They LOVE listening. They are really practicing reading books on their level, and they are working towards a goal! Folks, it was a great year during my small group reading block!

We were very lucky ducks and our principal bought us all recorders. I had enough that only a few students had to double. I get that we all spend wayyyy too much money, but do a donor's choose. Or just get a couple and make them share, or maybe have a chat with your principal about how beneficial it would be and see if maybe there is some wiggle room in the budget...

But, seriously, it was so fantastic to have them so motivated to improve their fluency. We just used very simple recorders like these:

I think that this year I am going to have students share their recording with another student as well, and that other student will have some kind of scoring system to rate how fluent their buddy is. That way we are all working to help one another become more fluent, and it takes a little pressure off of me to check in with everyone all the time.

Thanks for reading!