Monday, April 7, 2014

Fluency Funtabulous with Tellagami and AutoRap Apps!

Thanks to Allison Burka I have discovered two more fantastic apps to get students excited about reading fluently.

With Tellagami students get to create an avatar and then record themselves reading/talking for 30 seconds. There are two reasons why this app rocks! 1. You do not have to have an account to share a created Gami. You can either send the link via email and whoever you send the link to can watch the creation through a browser. You can also save the Gami to your camera roll. Once in your camera roll you could use the Gami in a variety of apps including stringing several together in iMovie. Plus you can email the creation to anyone. 2. The app is very user friendly and intuitive. When using this app with kindergarteners I had them pretend that they were stuck inside a book and then they read the book or a page of the book. The results were adorable. Tellagami could be used for more than reading fluently like talking about things that students have learned or explaining something orally.


Auto Rap is an extremely enjoyable way to practice fluency. Students are
amazed with the results. A kindergarten student was telling me over and over that it is the best app ever. Students record themselves reading and then the app turns recorded words into a realistic sounding rap. The only downside is that only one song/beat is free. Students may get bored with this app after a few reads. This week I am going to be in a second grade classroom that wrote a song about simple machines and they are going to use the Auto Rap app to make their Simple Machine songs into raps.


Student Examples:


I Like to Go Out by Sophia (Kindergarten)



Link to a Kindergarten Auto Rap creation.


If I Ran the School by Abby (5th Grade)



My Stuck in the Book Example


Student Auto Rap: Simple Machines

Classroom Lesson: