The pilot testing interest form is currently closed, but keep an eye on our blog and newsletter for Digital Storybooks project updates.
Last summer, EiE curriculum developers kicked off an exciting new initiative: EiE Digital Storybooks. As our August 2016 blog post describes, this project is an effort to better accommodate educators and learners by integrating our storybooks into a digital platform. Through collaboration with our outside partner, Alipes, these new storybooks are fully customizable. Educators can choose between abridged and unabridged versions while easily turning on or off features like vocabulary supports, discussion questions, and interactive animations. At EiE, we test our new products thoroughly to best ensure that by the time they reach the classroom, educators have a reliable product that works. We depend greatly on the feedback from educators and experts in the field. This fall, we are looking for classroom teachers to pilot test our digital storybooks. Click here to sign up for pilot testing and read below for more information about this exciting initiative.
Designed With Your Feedback in Mind
Last August, we asked for feedback about what our new digital storybooks should look like. Nearly 600 educators from around the country responded with insightful and innovative ideas. Their responses affirm our belief that educators work in complex and demanding environments. To be successful, they need resources that support their teaching goals, while being flexible enough to accommodate different teaching styles, learning environments, and types of learners. In an effort to make our storybooks both supportive and flexible, we are incorporating the following features:
Abridged & Unabridged Versions
EiE educators have been clamoring for shorter storybooks, and our development team has been hard at work to make them a reality! The abridged storybooks are designed to support educators with younger learners or time constraints without sacrificing the engaging and educational content that excites students. A group of educators have piloted selected abridged storybooks in their own classrooms to ensure that they are as effective as the originals, and we’re thrilled to begin rolling them out on our digital platform. You’ll have the ability to toggle between the abridged and original versions of each storybook for a totally customizable experience.
EiE storybooks contain some terms and concepts that may be unfamiliar to young learners. To help make our stories more accessible to independent readers, we’re adding vocabulary supports to our digital platform. Our simple definitions help your students understand science terms, cultural vocabulary, and more. This feature is designed to enhance literacy instruction and increase reading comprehension in your classroom.
Our read-aloud feature provides support for the different learning styles in your classroom, and helps students sound out terms that they may be hearing for the first time.
We’re excited to announce that you will have the option to toggle between English-language and Spanish-language storybooks to support the Spanish speakers in your classroom.
You’ll have the ability to change font type, text size, and color to ensure that the storybook format is most appropriate for your students.
EiE’s curriculum development team has collaborated with Alipes to create exciting interactive animations that help explain the science concepts in our storybooks. These engaging interactives will support science learning and add a whole new dimension to students’ reading experience. As with all of our other features, you’ll have the ability to toggle this feature on and off to best support your unique classroom environment.
Sign Me Up!
We’re excited about these additional features, and we are eager to see how classroom teachers are able to use them to better engage diverse learners. If you are a classroom teacher and would like to help EiE by testing a digital storybook in your classroom, sign up here!