If you are still having trouble mastering the Kindle you got for Christmas, there are some second graders at Petsworth Elementary School who can help you out with that.

Petsworth teacher Sharon Carino is utilizing the portable electronic book, or "e-book," readers in her classroom and finding it helps get her pupils interested in, and excited about, reading.

Looking for a new way to deliver instruction, Carino spent some of her summer researching the use of e-reader Kindles in the classroom. She found most use had been in secondary schools, where they are being utilized in place of textbooks, and not at the elementary level. So she loaded a Kindle with some age-appropriate reading for her 9-year-old niece and used the fourth grader as a "guinea pig." "She loved it, and she can take it anywhere she goes. It’s kid-friendly," Carino said of the results.

Carino’s students, and other students at Petsworth, also utilize another tech device called a Neo. The Neos were introduced by the school division technology department a couple of years ago and have been used by some teachers. Twenty-five of the units fit on a portable cart and teachers sign up for their use.

The Neo has a keyboard and a small screen, and is primarily used for word-processing. It can also be used with the Accelerated Reader program and Carino additionally uses a math program and the responder feature with her students. Her students enjoy working with the Neo, but it’s the book-sized Kindle that really seems to draw the children to the fundamental exercise of reading.

Obtaining Kindles for her classroom was an obstacle, but Carino made a pitch for their use and eventually got six of them. Four were purchased with grant funds obtained by her, a parent donated one and a retired teacher donated another.

Today’s children are often introduced to technology-based learning as toddlers through child-friendly computer software and gaming devices. They are accustomed to interacting with buttons and a screen as preschoolers so Carino’s second graders quickly learned how to work the Kindles. "The kids like it. They are already so familiar with technology," Carino said.

The durable Kindles are a perfect fit for her small reading groups and can be shared easily when there are more than six children. Another plus is that each electronic book Carino purchases online can be sent to up to six Kindles.

For her classroom use, Carino downloads a book and inserts questions at certain points in the text. The inserts are actually numbers which students use to locate the corresponding questions in another section of the Kindle.

"It’s one way to infuse technology in the classroom," she said. "With the embedded questions, they have to stop and think about what they’ve read. They learn to make connections to the story and to what they’re reading, which develops their comprehension."

The technology also facilitates self-guided reading. With traditional books, Carino would designate a place for the children to stop reading, then give the class a question to answer. Some students read faster than others, and can lose focus while waiting for the slower readers to catch up. With the Kindles, the children can read, answer the question, and move on at their own pace.

The students write the answers to the questions in their individual notebooks. "Later, I’ll step back and let them write their own questions," said Carino, which students in a higher reading ability group are already doing.

When Carino’s group is done, another second grader enters the classroom and packs up the Kindles. The Kindles, another small stack of traditional paper notebooks and another small group of children then head to the gymnasium.

The gym is the realm of physical education instructor Margaret Watkins, who also works with a reading group daily. Carino has explained to Watkins how she is using the Kindles and writes the lesson plan that Watkins follows. Due to the type of scheduling Petsworth uses, the resource teachers (phys ed, music, art) have daily open blocks of time to support the classroom teachers. "And we have so many kids that need that extra reading help," said Petsworth principal Evelyn Perhac.

The children with Watkins either sit or stretch out on the carpeted gym floor. This group is larger and has two new students. One newcomer is paired with a student named Shane and another with Watkins so they can learn how the Kindle is used. A couple of other children are also sharing their Kindles and all have their own notebooks.

When the children reach their designated stopping points, they are asked to make some connection to what they’ve read or to ask a question, with the connections or questions written in their notebooks. Near the end of class, they gather to go over their connections and questions with Watkins.

"Becoming a reflective reader is not automatic," said Perhac, so this process leads them to ask questions about what they’ve read, and to connect what they’ve read to other stories or experiences.

Carino’s success with the Kindles led to more of the readers. The Petsworth PTA provided four of them, Perhac used some Title I reading program funds to purchase some, and two more have been recently ordered for use with special education students. "When she (Carino) showed me all the possibilities, I thought we really needed more," Perhac said of adding 10 more to school inventory.

"You can use them with accelerated readers and with struggling readers. It can also be used as a carrot on a stick, depending on how you use it. It’s probably just unlimited what we could do with them," she continued.

Perhac was also considering purchasing a couple of Nooks, another brand of e-reader, for the school, which are more expensive but have the added feature of color.

"If it will help get one child more interested in reading, it will be worth it," said Perhac. "Once you get a child wanting to read, it won’t matter what it is—a Kindle, a Nook or a book."

Perhac reported a few days later that she was ordering the Nooks and putting them in Carino’s capable hands. Carino also provided the update in an e-mail, saying "Hopefully with the addition of pictures and easier text with the bonus of the new technology, my lowest readers will soar."