App Review: Record of Reading

ATTENTION ALL TEACHERS: THIS APP IS FABULOUS! Sorry to yell in all caps, but I am that much in love with this app! I just started my Rigby testing of my petunias today and I think that the Record of Reading app has to be at the top of my all time favorite teacher tool apps. Why do I love thee.....let me count the ways:)

1)Price-its free! Always adds bonus points to any app!

2)Ease of use. I 'played' around with this app and found the set up super easy to use. I was able to even do a quick demo for another teacher and because it is so easy to understand she decided to start using it too! Woo Hoo! Record of Reading app also makes my Rigby testing much more portable and quicker as I'm not constantly shuffling through paperwork. Anyone who has done reading records knows that it can be extremely time consuming, so this is a big plus!

3) Save a tree......or a hundred. I'm a big fan of anything that can cut down on my paper usage at school. Especially when the papers aren't needed to be kept in some file somewhere for eternity.  With this app I can access the information quickly, email it to anyone who may need it (ie interventionists and case managers), and even hold on to them until next year in an electronic file and send them to the student's 1st grade teachers. Lets be honest, when they are all in paper form they often get eaten by my desk monster, especially over the summer. 

4)Records their reading, saves it for playback, and does math for you! For whatever reason I really enjoy the fact that this app will calculate the errors and self correction rates as you go, give you the accuracy rate and classify if it is a difficult, instructional or independent level. Its not difficult math but it takes one task off of my many to dos and I appreciate that! The record feature is great as well. At the end the student and I will listen to their reading and I feel it opens up some great dialogue from them that I wouldn't otherwise get. Every Friday I try to film my students in their Guided Reading groups for their own observation, so we've had some practice at this type of reflection-but even with out practice the recording is still a great feature. Plus I can go back and listen too if I ever need to.

5)The pre-programmed choices and room for notes.  I can easily jot down notes on the first page of the reading record, and use drop down options to describe fluency.  This helps reading records become a more useful and complete tool, allowing for immediate and quick observation responses that I can reference back to after the fact. I'm finding I'm writing more detailed observational notes which will greatly help my teaching the next few weeks of school.

My only suggestion is to use a stylus to do the writing, it helps keep it looking 'cleaner'. Otherwise, go take a look! Hope you find it to be as helpful of a teaching tool as I do! If you want to know more about what other apps we use to make teaching life easier check out our events page here for our upcoming teacher workshops in the Central Minnesota area!