KG Librarian

How Creating Stories Can Help Motivate Teens to Read Getting high school students excited about reading fiction books is not an easy task. With all of their academic and extracurricular commitments, adolescents have little time to think about reading for pleasure. There are myriad benefits to reading, including opening up minds to other perdpectives and improving reading comprehension. Studies have shown that children who read achieve higher academic test scores (Gerrim & Moss, 2018). With this in mind, I am always looking for engaging ways to promote reading to teenagers in my library. Twine is a digital platform that allows users to create their own adventures. Teenagers, like most people, like to use their imaginations and tell stories. With this app, students can work independently or in groups to create texts that enhance their foundational writing skills while also strengthening their desire to read fiction.  \ To get started with Twine, students only need a computer or p...

Two digital tools that have shaped the way my library lessons have affected students are SORA and Gale Databases. These tools, though not traditional forms of social media, have become an academic type of social media for my students. Linda Kaye states that, "different types of engagements on social media may garner differential benefits or harms to users, particularly through the way certain activities may be better at promoting interpersonal connections than others" (2021, p. 1-2). From my observations, both of these technologically advanced platforms have improved the interpersonal connections between teachers, students, and classmates. Following are breakdowns of the various ways these platforms have changed the way my high school students interact with information, texts, and each other. SORA by Overdrive Education Overview SORA is an eBook and audiobook app that allows readers to digitally check out books. It is an aesthetically pleasing platform that is user-friendly....

     For my research, I'll be focusing on how to blend new literacies with traditional ones to help increase reading motivation among adolescents. Teenage students are often overwhelmed with academic work and extracurricular activities and show little interest in reading for pleasure. What free time they do have seems to be spent on their smartphones or other devices. Interestingly, when they do read, they seem to prefer print books over digital material. I'd like to explore ways to use digital tools in conjunction with print materials to help increase adolescents' excitement about reading.   Annotated Bibliography   Dera, J., Brouwer, S., & Welling, A. (2023). BookTok’s appeal on ninth‐grade students: An  inquiry into students’ responses on a social media revelation. Journal of Adolescent  & Adult Literacy , 67 (2), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1303 This article explores the possible use of #BookTok to raise high school students’ read...