Aromas, CA — Shakespeare once wrote, “To write and read comes by nature.” But for some students at Aromas School, nature could use a little help. Fortunately, the combination of eMac computers and spoken word audio content made available to Mac users through Audible.com is solving the problem. Now, students who once struggled with the written word are discovering the joy of reading.
Located approximately 30 miles from San Jose, California, the small community of Aromas boasts less than 3000 residents. At Aromas School, nearly a quarter of the 500 K-8 students are English Language Learners. Still others struggle to master basic reading skills. Thus, literacy has been a top priority at Aromas School since its inception.
In the past the school has used the Scholastic Reading Counts software program, which has proved successful for many students. But for others, literature has remained inaccessible due to their low reading ability. For years, teachers attempted to interest these at-risk learners in listening to books on tape or books on CD. But the cassettes frequently broke and students often lost their place in the text or on the CD. Then, says sixth grade math and science teacher James Dent, came the announcement that Apple had partnered with Audible, Inc. to deliver audiobooks via iTunes.
“We thought, ‘Wow, here are these files that we were paying close to $50 or $60 each to get the CDs for and they were available for $16!’” recalls Dent. “When we realised we could put them on our server and the kids could log on from any computer in the school and listen to them, we knew this was a perfect solution for us. The people at Audible, who were incredibly supportive, actually upgraded us to a corporate account so our students could access the downloads from any lab computer.”
We’ve had kids who, in just a month and a half, have probably quadrupled the amount of reading they’ve ever done in their lives.
— James Dent, Math and Science Teacher,
Aromas School
Audiobooks Engage Struggling Readers
Teachers can preview over 20,000 hours of audiobooks and other spoken word programs, then download them through the iTunes software onto Mac or Windows computers or onto an iPod. Dent says Aromas students are now listening and reading along to titles ranging from Harry Potter to The Hardy Boys, Charlotte’s Web to Stuart Little.
“There’s a little ‘timer’ icon at the top and kids just write down the time, put a bookmark in the hard-copy book when they stop, then come back to it the next day,” Dent explains. “They’re all just eating this up! We’ve had kids who, in just a month and a half, have probably quadrupled the amount of reading they’ve ever done in their lives.”
