How to use Electronic Text in your classroom:

• Find a selection of text that you would use in class. An example might be text 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.
  
  

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