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Digital Text
/ Finding Text
What it is:
There are numerous internet resources for digital text, with more sources being developed all the time. Many books and historical documents have been converted to digital format, for access via computer. New writing is being done to take advantage of hyperlinking and multi-media. See Digital Book Libraries (over 90 sites listed).
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How does it work:
First, download the free handout on eText resources for all age levels.
Examples of Free Books Online
Internet Public Library provides links to books, documents, magazines, and more, organized by topic. KidSpace at the site links to picture books, children's books in Spanish or French, kids poetry, elementary science, and other curriculum areas.
Project Gutenberg provides over 6000 books. A search for exploring the west produced 17 titles on the Oregon trail, Buffalo Bill, crossing the Rocky Mountains, etc. Each document is downloadable in plain text or zipped format and will then open in your web browser. They can also be opened in any application that can read plain text, including all word processors.
University of Virginia's E-Book Library features 2,200 publicly-available e-books including classic British and American fiction, major authors, children's literature, the Bible, Shakespeare, American history, African-American documents, and has a new center on religion and democracy. Material can accessed in HTML (web version) for online viewing (or cut and pasted into a word processor), and can be downloaded as both an E-book for Microsoft Reader and Palm-readable text for the Palm Reader.
The Baldwin Project provides customizable display for online reading of children's literature from 1880 - 1922, including over 350 Nursery Rhymes, Fables, Folk Tales, Myths, Legends and Hero Stories, Literary Fairy Tales, Bible Stories, Nature Stories, Biography, History, Fiction, Poetry, Storytelling, Games, and Craft Activities.
Inexpensive Books Online
Bookshare.org has over 12,000 titles of books that are still in copyright. These are available for an extremely reasonable subscription fee for teachers who work with student's that have an identified visual or print disability.
The Accessible Book Collection has selected over 500 books with a high interest/low reading level and gives detailed information on reading level for each title, as they are mainly audience is youth with learning disabilities. Subscriptions are $50 per year.
Examples of free digital text:- The Tell-Tale Heart
- Heidi
- Oliver Twist
- Tom Sawyer
- Little Women
- Kidnapped
- The Silver Balloon
- Dragonwings
- Mary Poppins
- The Jungle
Examples of historical information:
Examples of magazines and newspapers
Classroom Examples:
How to use Digital Text in your classroom:- Find a selection of text that you would use in class. An example might be Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Copy and paste it into a word processing program.
- Think about changes that could be made to enhance the reading experience for individual students.
- The text can be changed visually, by altering the size and color of the font, or adding more space between lines.
- Words and phrases can be underlined, bolded or highlighted. This can be done to draw attention to certain facts or new vocabulary.
- The text can be changed in terms of organization, giving a summary or an outline view.
- The text can also be placed in a box on one side of the page, with room on the other for student notes or questions.
- Questions for students to answer or background information can be inserted close to the relevant section of text.
- Text can be broken into manageable chunks, with generic prompts inserted to remind students to apply a strategy (e.g., summarizing, predicting, questioning, clarifying, and visualizing).
- The speech can be enhanced with an image of Dr. King, an audio clip of the first few lines of the speech, or a timeline of the civil rights movement. (Once enhanced, the same text documents can be used repeatedly, with or without further modification.)
- The computer can read the text aloud.
- Students can copy and paste words they don't know into an online dictionary, which will also read them aloud.
- Students can work with the text to produce their own summary or interpretation of the speech.
- You can print your enhanced version for students to read, or to be used as a worksheet.
Tips for Implementing:
Educational Sources of Digital Text for Background and Research- Marco Polo
- Web Quest
- KidsClick: Web resources organized by subject, with estimated reading level and links to text on sports, recreation, literature, geography, history, science, math, etc.
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Handout on E-text Sources
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