Teaching reading comprehension strategies and writing skills through technology call for innovation and creativity; luckily, thinking on one’s feet and problem-solving come naturally to teachers. Nearpod takes much of the guesswork out of creating and teaching students quality reading and writing skills lessons. According to an ESSA Level II study, 5th and 8th-grade students who used Nearpod had higher ELA achievement compared to similar students in their grade level who did not use it. These 6 tips for teaching reading and writing in the classroom are quick and easy, but they also add quality content and student control to any ELA block. To access the activities and lessons mentioned here, sign up for free below to get started!

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

What resources can I use to teach reading comprehension using technology?

Nearpod has curated an English Language Arts (ELA) Lesson Guide for Grades K-8 so you can spend less time searching for resources and more time doing what you love: teaching. With ready-to-launch lessons, activities, and videos, these guides can help you remediate key skills, reteach concepts, and even prep for testing time.

Download lesson guide

6 Strategies and activities for teaching reading comprehension and writing skills

1. Build a foundation with phonemic awareness

The foundation of English and language arts skills is phonemic awareness, which is anything students can do in the dark. The ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words is the basis for language itself. We talk before reading. If students aren’t successful in phonemic awareness, it predicts reading success or failure. That’s why it’s important for teachers to be conscientious and deliberate in teaching this reading skills and strategies. Nearpod’s many visual tools advance phonemic awareness instruction to new levels. There’s a vast array of activities teachers can create in Nearpd to teach phonemic awareness to engage and challenge students. Grounding reading instruction in background knowledge fosters deeper connections with content, making learning more meaningful.

Here are a few Nearpod ideas:

1. Use Drag and Drop for students to sort pictures based on beginning, middle, or ending sounds.
2. Use VR Field Trips where students search for items in virtual environments in lessons in an “I-Spy” manner: “I spy with my little eye something that ends with the /d/ sound.” Modify this activity to fit any phonemic awareness skill or make them more advanced as students progress.
3. Use the Draw It tool for students to upload pictures of multisyllabic and monosyllabic words, then have students segment and write how many syllables are in the word.
4. Use Matching Pairs to make pair cards to aid students in rhyming words.

2. Expand phonics skills

If the science of reading tells us anything, it’s that phonics must be systematic and explicit. Never leave students guessing. Inside the classroom, students work at various spelling levels. What teachers need most are phonics lessons that are easy to create and differentiate for all learners inside the classroom. Spending hours in front of the copier or cutting out game pieces for said activities isn’t ideal or efficient. Plus, teachers have to store all those games somewhere. Nearpod activities take so little time to create; once teachers make a lesson, it can act as a template for more differentiated activities.

Here are a few lesson ideas for phonics instruction:

1. Use Drag and Drop for students to create word sorts based on spelling patterns, prefixes and suffixes, and syllable types. For example, have students sort the three sounds of -ed, or -sion, and -tion.
2. Use Time to Climb to engage students in spelling. Answers developed vary from written to using pictures.
3. Make word chain questions to keep students on their feet with multiple spelling patterns. For example, have students start with the spelling “meat” and then have the next question be, “Would you like to ____________ after school?” It gets more complex spellers and higher-level thinking but in fun ways.
4. Create vivid slideshows that are charts for students to reference throughout the lesson. Upload R-controlled vowel charts, l-blend charts, diphthongs, and vowel teams. Students refer back to charts throughout the lesson. This is good for introducing phonics concepts or reviewing previously taught concepts.
5. Use Open-Ended Questions connecting the sound a phoneme makes with its grapheme (written form). Record a sound through Nearpod’s audio feature, and students write the spelling as their answer. Also, students can practice full dictation skills, where teachers record themselves saying a sentence, and students write what they hear.

3. Becoming fluent readers

Fluency is all about reading text like how people talk. The only way students become more fluent readers is by having multiple opportunities to read while also experiencing what fluency sounds like.

All of these activities give students much needed practice to help with accuracy, speed, and expression: 

1. Use Draw It for students to practice the “Scoop Phrases” technique. Upload graphic organizers for sentences where students have to group words together to train their eyes to read phrases instead of word by word. Students mark the sentences up, then read the phrases aloud.
2. Do audible Open-Ended Questions practice. Have students record audio of themselves reading a passage in the Open-Ended Question to you on Nearpod. To help with timed assessments, add a time limit to better prepare students for timed running records or other timed daily oral reading fluency assessments.
3. Use Nearpod’s Collaborate Board for practice with punctuation. Write a sentence without any punctuation and have students decide what punctuation would be best. The students read the sentence depending on expression – voice raised at the end for question mark (?), passion with an exclamation point (!), or even a calm tone for a period (.). This activity helps students realize that ending marks help us learn how to read with expression. 
4. Insert videos of Read Alouds into lessons for students to hear what fluent reading sounds like. Adults reading stories aloud help model expression, pace, and phrasing. You can also enable Immersive Reader on Nearpod for text-to-speech and parts of speech.
5. Use Drag and Drop to create nursery rhyme, poem, or sentence puzzles for students to put back together and read. By breaking those rhymes apart into individual words and putting them back together again, kids see how words build into sentences and stories in a natural flow.

4. Develop and improve vocabulary

Vocabulary instruction of the 21st century surpasses the days when students broke out dictionaries in class, searching through pages and transcribing definitions onto paper. At the time, that’s all classrooms really had at their disposal. Using Nearpod and its selection of activities, teachers build lessons that make words have more personal relevance. Students interact with content to make deeper connections for richer vocabularies when teaching reading strategies.

Try a few of these activities to give a boost to student vocabulary to reinforce instructional strategies for reading:

1. Use Matching Pairs to talk about ELA vocabulary. Many ELA vocabulary like explain, analyze, predict, summarize/compare & contrast, etc, are Tier 2 vocab terms that cross-curriculum. ELA is a good time to really learn and address these terms. Tier 2 vocabulary is high-frequency vocabulary on standardized tests. 
2. Use Fill In the Blank activity to build context clues awareness
3. Use Collaborate Board to create a “Graffiti Wall.” Post words in the question section and have kids add sticky notes to illustrate the term.
4. Use Draw It to make vocabulary sketch notes. Students can sketch instead of writing out definitions. Ask students to draw a sketch summarizing each word. It’s a lot more engaging and gives kids a picture for visual association and to help them remember the meanings.
5. Try Flipgrid. It’s great for vocabulary activities! Have kids record a quick video for each word, using their creativity to make it fun and meaningful.

5. Dive deep into reading comprehension

Reading comprehension all boils down to processing texts and making meaning, all while integrating these skills into what the reader already knows. Comprehension is no small feat. Students must read, re-read, mark up, and work with texts. They must practice answering questions literally and figuratively, inferring, drawing conclusions, and note-taking.

They can do all of these things using Nearpod in the following ways:

1. Pull in the texts you are reading and work on the overall comprehension skill – bring questions in from the core reading and writing curriculum to practice. Use Venn Diagrams and other templates from Nearpod’s activity banks.
2. Use Open-Ended Questions to develop their ideas and understanding of a text and practice writing or speaking independently. Responses can be typed, or voice recorded.
3. Use a Collaborate Board to share their understanding and compare/contrast their findings to their peers, or build off ideas that their peers share
4. Use a Draw It to have students explain their understanding of the text
5. Embed a PDF to model fluent reading and to have students practice close reading.
6. Do a Time to Climb with comprehension questions tied to stories students read to create friendly competition tied to literal comprehension and inferring skills

6. Make grammar interactive

Grammar is fun. Get students amped up about parts of speech and punctuation by making grammar interactive, colorful, and even humorous. These lessons are suitable for all age ranges and multiple levels. What’s also fantastic is students work with texts to help them discover voice and craft within the writing.

When exploring comprehension strategies for reading, use these grammar lessons to spark inspiration within students’ writing inside the classroom:

1. Use Drag and Drop for conjunctions. Give students phrases and conjunctions to create their own compound sentences. Create parts of speech sorts using Drag and Drop.
2. Draw It is a great way for students to practice their grammar revision skills. They can do a sentence or paragraph of the day and fix errors. It can also be used as a “Search and Find”. Find articles or stories to upload, and then challenge students to find specific grammatical examples such as prepositional phrases, adverbs, and past tense verbs, either regular or irregular. 
3. Use Draw It for the tried and true sentence diagramming. Students get a sentence and have to represent its grammatical structure pictorially. For younger students, have them color sentences by parts of speech. Coloring is proven to be calming while having them put their skills into practice. 
4. Use Fill in the Blanks to create a mad lib-like activity with parts of speech. 
5. Use Matching Pairs to match words with parts of speech, etc.
6. Make a Collaborate Board about “Why Spelling Matters.” Have students find funny or surprising pictures of misspellings, omitted punctuation, or other grammar errors from real life or the internet.

Build students’ reading comprehension using Nearpod

In the dynamic world of reading instruction, incorporating various strategies is key to helping students understand and engage with texts. From mastering letter sounds to tapping into prior knowledge, educators employ a rich toolkit to cultivate reading comprehension skills. Ultimately, these fun and multifaceted methods not only teach kids to read but also equip them with the tools to comprehend and appreciate the written word.

Methods of teaching reading and writing are fun and exciting. So many lessons can be made in Nearpod for all reading strands and writing. Once you get the hang of Nearpod’s platform, your library will be full of interactive and engaging ELA lessons. Hopefully, this list will propel you in the right direction.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post 6 Fun strategies for teaching reading comprehension appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

April is National Poetry Month, an annual celebration established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is a time to celebrate the diversity and richness of the literary arts and explore how poetry can inspire, uplift, and transform us. Teaching poetry activities can be a fun and creative experience, and there are many ideas you can use to help students understand and enjoy this literary art form. Whether you are a seasoned teacher or new to teaching poetry, these creative Poetry Month ideas will have your students engaged and appreciating poems.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for a free Nearpod account below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Poetry Month Activities: 6 engaging ideas for teaching poetry

1. Teach the foundations of poetry

Before reading and analyzing poetry with students, it’s important to teach them foundational knowledge. Although art is subjective and poetry is art, there are many basic elements students should know about beforehand. After all, understanding the work that goes into it and its history will help students appreciate these literary masterpieces.

Here are some lessons, activities, and videos you can use to introduce poetry in the classroom:

• Identifying Elements of a Poem (Grade 2): In this Matching Pairs activity, students strengthen their understanding of the elements of a poem and identify poetic elements in sentences.

• What Is Poetry? (Grades 4-8): In this investigative video from Nearpod Originals, students learn that poetry can be almost anything—but often includes figurative language and sound devices. They also consider how song lyrics are a form of poetry.

• Learn Zillion’s Poetry Series (Grades 4-8): This poetry lesson collection from Nearpod and Learn Zillion includes lessons about reading and writing poetry, covering topics such as setting, mood, theme, structure, symbolism, and more. Choose a lesson, launch it as is, or modify it to fit your student’s needs.

2. Inspire students to write poems using virtual reality

Poetry tends to be descriptive and visual, so pricing them with inspiring visuals can result in creative writing. Instead of simply showing a static image for visual inspiration, immerse them into a setting using a Virtual Reality (VR) Field Trip. Don’t worry, no headsets are needed for this! Students will need to have their own devices, such as a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, or teachers can simply project the VR experience on a screen in front of the class.

Here are some VR lessons you can use for free:

• Ode to the Simple Things (Grades 6-8): In this VR lesson, students explore odes and how poetry can be about simple as well as complex things. Students take a virtual field to a beach with many pebbles, then write an ode to pebbles.

• Conjuring the Senses (Grades 6-8): In this VR lesson, students explore how imagery of the five senses can enrich the meaning of a poem. Students take a virtual field to the Thames River and consider how the river would affect their senses.

3. Create Drag and Drop activities to practice magnetic poetry

Of all the fun poetry activities, magnetic poems and poetry frames can be adaptable for many grade levels. Nearpod’s Drag and Drop feature allows teachers to create digital magnetic poems. Use this tool to have students enter words or phrases to create their own poems. By having students drag text or images in a Drag and Drop, they can create more descriptive poems. Try out this activity.

In the poetry prompts and draggable words, teachers can add higher-level vocabulary or simple decodable words depending on students’ abilities.

4. For young writers, use poetry frames

Poetry Frames are another excellent source of inspiration for young writers. These graphic organizers can easily get students started writing their own poems. Teachers can create their own frames or upload premade ones into the Drag and Drop background. Help students model lyrics or even sonnets. If you have students create various frames, consider making poetry books with their work. Try out this activity.

5. Boost creativity visual or concrete poetry

Poetry is filled with imagery, and pictures are great resources to spark ideas. Try these Poetry Month ideas to incorporate visual imagery into your lesson plans:

• Using Nearpod’s drawing assessment tool, Draw it, students can create their own concrete poems, which are poems that take the shape of their topic.
• Teachers can upload PDFs of poem examples to accompany directions. Use poems by Jack Prelutsky or Shel Silverstein for a fun twist.
• Create a lesson where students can choose their own visual to inspire a poem. They can then write their poem using the Draw It or Open-Ended Question tool. This grants more creative freedom for students to take their poetry to new and interesting places.
• Students can write concrete poems directly into the lesson. Not only can teachers upload reference images into the Draw It activity, but students can also upload their own images or explore on Google Safe Search.

6. Shared poetry using the Collaborate Board

Good ideas often come with a little help. Shared poetry gives writers an extra boost. Using the Collaborate Board activity, the class develops shared poetry. Creating a shared poetry lesson in Nearpod is quick, simple, and impactful with these steps: 

• Add an activity slide and select Collaborate Board.
• Type your lesson topic into the directions box. The beauty of this activity is that teachers have total control over the prompt – being as specific or broad as is necessary while still fostering creativity. Add a simple visual image as reference media to allow for multiple interpretations or give detailed directions/instructional aids for students to mimic certain poetic devices or styles. 
• Assign your shared poetry lesson to the class by sharing the lesson code with students. So much flexibility is given that teachers can allow students to add to the shared poem individually or work in small groups.
• The whole class sees what’s being contributed to the poem in real-time. It’s a great opportunity to discuss poetry ideas and share thinking, even sharing comments!

Collaborate Board’s design layout allows students to add audio recordings and videos! Results are unexpected but wholly unique and diverse. The real trick is to pick broad topics while also being relatable. Themes like love, friendship, or nature give room for interpretation but are not too broad to disconnect students. Read the poem aloud to see their masterpiece come to life.

7. Use Flocabulary’s poem videos

Did you know that Flocabulary videos are available on Nearpod? You can use Flocabulary’s videos to create an interactive Nearpod lesson or video with embedded formative assessments. Explore more poetry activities using Flocabulary.

For example, you can teach middle and high school students Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” through this adaption. Dive deeper into the literary devices by using the Tone & Mood lesson with The Raven adaptation.

You can find these lessons by searching “poetry” in the lesson library and then clicking “Flocabulary” in the Partners filter.*

*Only available to users with access to Flocabulary.

Start teaching poetry activities with the help of Nearpod

We’re so excited to see you use these tips in the classroom! Not only can you use these activities and ideas for Poetry Month, you can use them when teaching poetry to kids at any time of the school year. Nearpod’s interactive activities and lessons will keep your students engaged and learning, while supporting you as their teacher through real-time insights.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for a free Nearpod account below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post Poetry Month Activities: 7 creative ideas for teaching poetry appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Regardless of grade level, every classroom has students with different needs and ability levels. Differentiated instruction is important for students because it recognizes and supports their diverse learning needs and abilities, which can enhance their engagement, motivation, achievement, and overall well-being. Differentiated instruction examples can include using formative assessment to understand students’ needs, provide multiple learning options, and deliver personalized feedback.

Teaching to the “average” works for some students sometimes, but it is rarely enough to support every learner. Although differentiation has become an educational buzzword in the past few years, the idea behind the term is essential in today’s classrooms, especially post-pandemic.

The 2010 National Education Technology Plan (NETP) describes differentiation as follows:

“Instruction that is tailored to the learning preferences of different learners. Learning goals are the same for all students, but the method or approach of instruction varies according to the preferences of each student or what research has found works best for students like them.”

In other words, instruction is based on the needs and preferences of each individual student within their learning environment. While that can certainly be difficult to achieve, it is important to note that differentiated instruction can help increase both student engagement and achievement.

How to use tech to differentiate instruction for students

Using tech to differentiate instruction in the classroom is a practical resource to broaden inclusivity for all learners. One size does not fit all in education. Sometimes curriculums don’t differentiate their instructional materials, catering to the average student while providing leaflets for students needing differentiated tools the most: high achievers, English language learners, Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) students, and those with speech-language concerns. This is where tech tools, like Nearpod, can support.

Nearpod can help teachers differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs of all learners within their classroom.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Differentiated instruction examples to maximize student learning

1. Use formative assessment to understand student needs

Nearpod’s formative assessment activities are effective for differentiating instruction. Teachers can send out formative assessment activities such as polls and quizzes, ask open-ended questions, have students submit drawing assessments through Draw It, and even write short notes on the Collaborate Board.

All of these features allow teachers to get instant insight into how their students are doing and address any questions or misconceptions.

For example, Ann Feldmann at Edutopia describes how first-grade teacher Megan Cinfel uses the Draw It to collect formative feedback, which she later uses to differentiate her instruction:

“[She] gathers her students on the rug in a circle, sits with them, and presents new math concepts to all of their iPads simultaneously. She uses the draw feature daily to collect formative data. Students use the pen tool to draw responses and send them back. Teachers immediately see the data and can share student work back to their screens in just a click. This is a powerful way for students to see peer responses and explain their reasoning.”

The daily formative assessment data collected and compared to summative data can give teachers a better view of student mastery. Then, once teachers know where their students are, they can adjust to instruction moving forward and consider micro-intervention. This type of instant formative feedback can be beneficial for quickly understanding each student’s specific and varied needs.

Integrating interactive activities into your lessons can cast a wider net for all the unique gems in class. When lesson planning, here are some differentiated instruction technology examples to consider when using Nearpod:

• Slides and videos for visual learners
• Open-Ended Questions for deep thinkers
• Draw It for artistic students
• Time to Climb for competitive types 
• Drag and Drop for hands-on learners
• Collaborate Board for social collaborators
• Polls for opinionated learners
• Matching Pairs for the ones who see patterns
• Fill-in-the Blanks for those who need context
• VR Field Trips for imaginative minds

2. Provide accessibility options for inclusivity

Differentiation allows for greater inclusivity in the classroom. Technology-based lessons give students better access to concepts than various traditional methods. Nearpod’s inclusivity features support multiple needs, such as:

• Immersive Reader: Enable Microsoft Immersive Reader to include accessibility functions such as text-to-speech, translation, contrast, voice speed, and font size, to name a few examples.
• Closed Caption: Always enable captions for videos. Videos in Nearpod provide closed captions for students to follow along with videos through subtitles if needed.
• Audio Functions: Enable audio responses as an assessment option to help students who prefer this method.

3. Gain insight from student assessments

With every lesson, you get instantaneous assessment feedback to guide and differentiate instruction. Using assessment data, teachers can also plan data-driven instruction for the whole class or small group to differentiate. After students complete Nearpod lessons, teachers can look into Post-session reports and use individual student data to guide the next lessons around student needs. Post-session reports can be organized by correct answers, student names, question types, percentages, and more.

During a Nearpod lesson, you can also toggle between the student and teacher views. The Teacher Dashboard shows you student responses in real-time so you can address misconceptions in the moment. You can even use the Whiteboard feature to model for students!

Nearpod takes differentiated instruction examples for assessments one step further, allowing students to access and see their own reports. Conferencing with and guiding students in creating personal learning goals adds another layer to differentiation in teaching by making students accountable for their own individual learning. You and your students can work collaboratively to make a learning path specifically designed for their learning styles. This creates a norm within the classroom for every student to realize that learning is personal and subjective. Comparing yourself to other students should become a thing of the past.

4. Implement differentiated lessons in your instruction

Once teachers are aware of students’ individual needs based on the formative feedback they receive, they can begin differentiating instruction based on those needs.

Differentiating to individual needs can look incredibly different depending on the grade level, subject area, and student’s needs. But as Ben Johnson of Edutopia describes, “The ideal is to provide equivalent learning activities that cater to the students’ strengths but bring all of the students to the same learning objective.” In other words, teachers should support students on their journey toward the main learning objective of the lesson, but that support might look very different for each student or each group of students. Consider including Nearpod’s lesson library in your differentiated instruction tools.

Lesson Library

Preparing this type of support on the fly can be difficult. That’s why it can be beneficial for teachers to prepare different lesson possibilities for students beforehand.

These lessons can be based on the different learning paths teachers expect their students to need, based on previous experience and their own expertise.

Nearpod’s quality lesson library has thousands of premade standards-aligned lessons, videos, and activities made by content experts and trusted educational publishers.

Lessons you download, create, or edit from Nearpod are immediately saved to your account for future use for years to come. You can organize folders of lessons based on small groups, skills, subjects, etc.

Here are three simple steps to keep your lessons organized by folder:

• Go to “My Lessons” and click on “+Folder”
• Type a name for the folder and click “Create”
• Drag any lesson you want into the folder!

5. Duplicate and edit lessons to address different needs

By preparing a variety of learning paths and differentiated instruction examples, teachers can ensure that whatever needs arise during the course of a lesson, they’ll be ready to meet them. If students need extra practice or remediation, have a Nearpod lesson prepared to share about the topic. If there are students who are ready to move on with additional real-world examples, teachers can have an assignment ready for them too.

By enabling Student-Paced mode, students can work through these lessons on their own or in small groups while the teacher provides individual support and guidance where needed. Easy to use, you can build regular lessons in Nearpod without worrying about pushing struggling learners too hard, while students who are ready to move quicker can continue unhindered. Students log in with a 5-digit code and work through a lesson at their own speed. They have time to work through problems and process answers truly while not feeling rushed or “left behind” for not moving quickly.

In addition to allowing for differentiation, preparing multiple lesson possibilities also means that students can have a choice in the direction their learning takes. Provide students with a choice board that includes various Nearpod lesson codes, or other assignment options, with a description of the objective. This combination of student voice, choice, and differentiation opens up powerful possibilities In addition to allowing for differentiation, preparing multiple lesson possibilities also means that students can have a choice in the direction their learning takes. Provide students with a choice board that includes various Nearpod lesson codes, or other assignment options, with a description of the objective. This combination of student voice, choice, and differentiation opens up powerful possibilities at all grade levels during the learning process at all grade levels.

Start differentiating instruction in your classroom

We’re so excited to see you use these differentiated learning examples! Differentiation becomes second nature in a classroom with the right resources at your disposal. Everyone learns differently, which means teachers need the necessary resources to reach and make an impact on every student inside the classroom. Nearpod’s interactive formative assessments and lessons make learning accessible to all learners in the classroom.

New to Nearpod? Teachers can sign up for free below to access these resources, interactive activities, and engaging lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post Differentiated instruction examples to maximize student learning appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Nearpod gives you real-time insights into student understanding through interactive lessons, interactive videos, gamification, and activities. Students can join from their devices to participate in the lesson through simple steps. Learn how to teach your students how to use Nearpod in simple steps. With Nearpod for elementary educators, you can access standards-aligned premade lessons, activities, and videos, and create your own. To access the activities and lessons mentioned here, sign up for free below to get started!

Why is it important to use technology in education for elementary school students?

Kids can surprise you. I think that’s why I’m still at the edge of my seat even after nine years of teaching first grade. This infographic published by Everyday Family shows that 57% of kids under 12 have used a mobile device for educational purposes. Oddly enough, there seems to be this misconception that technology isn’t suitable for early education classrooms, and it’s been my personal experience that this is incorrect. There are many benefits to using teaching in the classroom. Teaching elementary students with technology provides them opportunities to learn at their own pace, increases their engagement and participation, helps build their skills in operating devices and software, creates fun learning moments, and prepares them for future careers.

How to use technology in the elementary classroom

1. Interactive activities

With one simple click, young students connect to learning in ways that far surpass paper pencils and cutting and gluing. You can still create hands-on and interactive learning experiences for your students with technology. Have them use digital drawing whiteboards, drag and drop activities, virtual reality experiences, and more.

Nearpod’s activities are perfectly suited for primary students. Activities like Draw It and Drag and Drop allow students to show what they know, even ones who have yet to master basic typing skills.

To help students just learning to read and write, Nearpod gives assistive tools such as: 

• Student-Paced Mode
• Audio Responses
• Text-to-Speech in Immersive Reader
• Various Multimedia Instructions 

2. Videos and activities for reading

Video’s growing role in the classroom makes it the newest genre alongside fiction and informative texts. More than that, young learners respond to interesting, Interactive Videos. My students retain more reading concepts when I teach through Nearpod than just big books and anchor charts alone. My reading program tasked me to teach the concept of characters to my students. I showed the “Story Elements for Kids: What is a Character?” Interactive Video. Whole-group teaching on the carpet evolved beyond pointing to a poster and reading a big book. I was able to expand my lesson by gauging student understanding during instruction through questions embedded in the video. There are many more reading videos to choose from in Nearpod’s Lesson Library and other subjects, and teachers can link these videos to more activities when creating a lesson. When searching for lessons, filter by subject, standards, and grade level to find content that’s right for your classroom.

Test out some of these Nearpod activities on the carpet and see how the little learners leap off the carpet to participate in reading instruction: 

• Time to Climb
• Matching Pairs
• Memory Test
• Fill-in-the-blanks

3. Teaching phonics

Primary teachers, raise your hands if every student in your classroom needs the same phonics skill. If someone raised their hand, it was probably to go to the bathroom. This happens to me all the time when I’m teaching! What I’ve come to learn by teaching first grade is that phonics is subjective. In early education classrooms, phonics is instrumental to reading, spelling, and breathing. Maybe not the last one, but close. Many students need different phonics skills, meaning we must meet all students on their level. Nearpod saves time and energy for differentiated phonics activities. I love using Drag and Drop to make word sorts. I also tie Nearpod videos to the lesson to help reinforce spelling patterns. My kids adore Alphablocks! Check out the lesson I created on Nearpod using Alphablocks. This gives me station activities while I read with my students. I give each group a code to complete their activities and check student progress through reports.

Here is just a short list of activities you can create in Nearpod to amp up your phonics. With these tools at your disposal, the phonics possibilities are endless.

• Use the Matching Pairs feature for letter-sound correspondence with pictures and words.
• Use Drag and Drop to create word sorts for different spelling patterns. 
• Use Draw It for students to label words and identify syllable types (helps with identifying consonant letters vs. vowels).
• Use Collaborate Board for students to think of and practice spelling words that follow sound patterns.

4. Using multimedia in math

A great math supplement is a thing of beauty. No curriculum is perfect enough to give teachers everything that they need when they need it. That’s just the hard reality we face. However, Nearpod’s library of math videos, lessons, and activities helps guide my math instruction in the right direction. There are so many math concepts to choose from that are all aligned with standards, so I don’t question the content I assign my students. Nearpod even gives teachers high-quality videos with partners such as:

• Flocabulary
• Sesame Street (Shout out to Cookie Monster!)
• Numberblocks
• LearnZillion
• Khan Academy
• Nearpod’s original content

Browse Nearpod’s Lesson Library for math concepts you are teaching for that day. It saves time and prep work while you still ensure that students learn math skills just right for them. All you need to do is filter by grade and subject in the Nearpod library. Premade lessons are at your fingertips and already aligned with standards.

5. Virtual reality for science and social studies

I live in the middle of nowhere! It’s true. Being in a small town is nice for the most part, but we don’t have access to many resources for science and social studies. I still want to broaden my student’s horizons when teaching science and social studies. Younger students are curious about the world around them. Nearpod’s Virtual Reality (VR) Field Trips help add relativity to both social studies and science.

VR experiences help my early education kids see cultures and people vastly diverse from themselves. Nearpod includes social studies lessons that prepare my students for the beauty of how large and diverse the world truly is. The content is truly rich in cultural diversity and inclusivity. I love all things spooky, and to celebrate my mom’s Mexican heritage, I found a wonderful Dia De Los Muertos lesson to share with my students. I loved it and so did they.

6. Writing instruction through technology

The landscape of writing has morphed into something wholly original. I am an early education teacher that believes in mixing old and new. Yes, I still use primary paper, pencil, and journals, but I also give my first graders opportunities to write through technology. Creating lessons through Nearpod allows writing to be more interactive and hands-on while instructing young writers along the way. The worst thing is having students hate writing; my students love expressing their writing through technology. The many accessibility features in Nearpod, such as Immersive Reader and audio recording, help emerging writers more than ever before. Students record their ideas, write them with the Draw It activity, or practice their typing skills. This helps those young writers who cannot hold an idea to write it down on paper. Pictures and videos spark writing ideas more than simply giving a writing prompt. There are many grammar and writing videos and lessons for primary grades in Nearpod to make writing more hands-on and interactive.

Technology also aids students who struggle with handwriting. Oftentimes, you find that even students at early ages don’t like writing with paper pencils but ideas flow more naturally through a keyboard. Don’t we as teachers need to allow all learners the ability to access their potential? Younger students need more exposure to expressing ideas through a keyboard. This helps teachers with technology standards but in fun, innovative ways.

Get started using elementary classroom technology with Nearpod

Young learners are curious and inquisitive. Through practice and patience, early education students are well suited to use technology within the classroom. The first step is to place the technology into their tiny hands and Nearpod will help you take those first steps with confidence. I’m sure your youngins will take to technology like a duck to water!

To access the activities and features mentioned in this blog post, sign up for Nearpod for free!

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post How to use technology in the elementary classroom appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Student-Paced Mode

Nearpod’s Student-Paced Mode feature was designed with differentiating instruction in mind. Easy to use, you can build regular lessons in Nearpod without having to worry about pushing struggling learners too hard while students ready to move at a quicker pace can continue unhindered. Students still login with a 5-digit code, but can work through a lesson at their own speed.  Slower students get time to truly work through problems and process answers, but don’t feel rushed or “left behind” for not moving quickly. Interested in giving Student-Paced Mode a try, the Nearpod has wonderful articles to get you started:

• 6 Genius Ways to Use Student-Paced Nearpod Lessons
• Using Student-Paced Lessons as a Pre-Test
• Student-Paced Guide: Monitoring progress, change expiration dates, and more

Different lessons for different Levels

Remember those huge binders I made to help differentiate for my students? Well, I’m happy to report my lessons are housed in my Nearpod library and no longer a threat to anyone’s health and safety. Now, I can quickly make differentiated lessons for learners for all subject areas – spelling, reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. Pulling in clipart, videos, and content to fit my groups and what levels and skills they need to work on. If I’m short on time, Nearpod has pre-made lessons at all levels that I can edit to fit my needs. If I need rigorous content for my high achievers, the filter tool in the Nearpod library lets me select grade-levels, subjects, and even whether I want videos, lessons, or activities. You can even filter based on what specific standard you want your students working on. It doesn’t get more differentiated than that!

Lessons you create or edit/ use from the Nearpod library are immediately saved to your account for future use for many years to come. I like to make folders to organize my lessons based on small groups, skills, subjects, etc. 

Keep your differentiated lessons organized by

• Clicking the “Folder” icon in your Nearpod library
• Create a name for the folder and click “Create”
• Drag any lesson you want into the folder 
• Access lessons that are organized and ready to use!

Assessment to guide instruction

With every lesson, you get instantaneous assessment feedback to guide and differentiate instruction. After students complete Nearpod lessons, I can look into my reports and use individual student data to guide my next lessons around student needs. Reports break down by correct answers, student names, question type, responses, and percentages. If a student needs more help, I can create my own lesson or pull from the library to fit the skills I want students to practice. During a Nearpod lesson, you can also toggle between student and teacher view. The Teacher Dashboard shows you student responses in real-time so you can address misconceptions in the moment. You can even use the Whiteboard feature to model for students!

Nearpod takes assessment for differentiation one step further in that students can access and see their own reports. Conferencing with and guiding students in creating personal learning goals adds another layer to differentiation in teaching by making students accountable for their own individual learning as well. You and your students can work collaboratively to make a learning path specifically designed for that child’s learning needs. This creates a norm within the classroom for every student to realize that learning is personal and subjective. Comparing yourself to other students should become a thing of the past.

Inclusivity features for every lesson

Differentiation allows for greater inclusivity in the classroom. Technology-based lessons give students better access to concepts than various traditional methods. Nearpod’s inclusivity features support multiple needs. 

Some features include:

• Immersive Reader – Nearpod merges with Microsoft Immersive Reader with functions such as text-to-speech, translation, contrast, voice speed, and font size to name a few examples.
• Closed Caption – Videos in Nearpod lessons provide closed captions for students to follow along with videos through subtitles if needed.
• English Language Learners – Flocabulary videos help support vocabulary, English Language Learner resources in the Nearpod library to add more layers to instruction.
• Audio Functions – Audio directions and responses to help low readers and even students who are on language IEPs (Individual Education Plans).

Multiple responses for all Learners

Everyone learns differently, which means teachers need more resources at our disposal to reach and make an impact on every student inside the classroom. Inclusive classrooms that offer differentiated instruction are ones that offer flexibility along with variety in the lessons presented to students. One note worksheets make an impact on a small percentage of students in the classroom, not to mention they don’t gain much positive attention. 

Integrating different Nearpod activities, such as these, into your lessons can cast a wider net for all the unique gems in class:

• Slides and videos for visual learners
• Open-Ended Questions for deep thinkers
• Draw-it for artistic students
• Time to Climb for competitive types 
• Drag and Drop for hands-on learners
• Collaboration Board for social collaborators
• Polls for opinionated learners
• Matching Pairs for the ones who see patterns
• Fill in the Blanks for those who need context
• VR Field Trips for imaginative mind

Differentiation becomes second nature in a classroom with the right resources at your disposal. Nearpod’s many features and activities make learning accessible to all learners in the classroom. Isn’t that what all teachers want?

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post How to use tech to differentiate for students appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

5 ways to use Interactive Video in the classroom

1. Assessment

Finding a meaningful assessment feels like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s worse when you have to come up with your own assessments – no pressure. Sometimes you just need something easy but relevant to the content. With Interactive Videos in Nearpod, assessment and engagement make a perfect combo like PB and J. What’s absolutely fabulous about using Interactive Videos as assessments is they’re versatile for any occasion. 

Follow these steps and tips when creating an Interactive Video lesson:

1. 1. When you’re creating an Interactive Video lesson, place a question at the start to pre-assess prior knowledge. 
2. 2. Add a question in the middle of the video to act as a formative assessment, gauging student understanding. 
3. 3. Afterwards, look back at the post-session reports and see which students may need reteaching.

My absolute favorite is to use an Interactive Video as an exit ticket. Students watch a short video tied to the subject content, answer questions, and you get quick reports telling you how well the lesson went – awesome, I’m sure! Nearpod’s Interactive Video feature even allows for different question formats: multiple choice or open-ended. 

2. Whole Group Teaching

When you’re a primary teacher like me, you spend a lot of time at the carpet. Engagement and purposeful questioning are key to herding a room full of kittens. They’re cute but you gotta hook ‘em. I’m not artistic, so my anchor charts look like Picassos. I also write down great discussion questions in my lesson plans, but often don’t ask them at the right time or forget asking them altogether. It’s great using the Front of Class mode with Interactive Videos because the pauses in videos act as discussion prompts, guiding lessons in targeted ways. It makes me pause to allow students to reflect on what I’m teaching. They get opportunities to think-pair-share, answer individually by calling on students to select answers, or answer as a whole class. To save me even more time, Nearpod’s library already has pre-made interactive videos in multiple subject areas – ELA, math, science, and social studies.

Finding a video is easy. Here are a few steps:

1. 1. Click into Nearpod library
2. 2. Select “Videos” in the filter
3. 3. Select grade level and subject
4. 4. Choose an Interactive Video for your upcoming lesson

3. Station Activity

Interactive Videos are perfect station activities. Leaving students on their own when using either an interactive notebook or craftivity is dangerous. Younger students struggle to read directions, and let’s be honest, older students ignore them. What you thought would be a simple, independent activity turns into utter calamity. With Interactive Videos, you can record a video of yourself making the interactive notebook or craftivity for students to follow along to in real time. Insert questions, checking on student progress to help maintain balance in the universe.

Creating your own video is straight forward:

1. 1. In your Nearpod library, click “create” then “video”
2. 2. You can upload your own video or even pull videos from places like Youtube.
3. 3. Once you upload your video into Nearpod, “add activity” to create open-ended or multiple choice questions. 
4. 4. Save your question and add as many questions to the video you feel are necessary.

4. Distance Learning

Distance learning – challenge accepted! I’m sure we’re all in agreement that students learn better in the classroom, but our world changed. Teachers must maximize learning done outside the classroom as much as possible. Embedding responses into videos maximizes student learning as much as possible through distance learning. With ordinary educational videos, what stops a student from clicking play and leaving the room? As much as I hate to raise my hand on this one, I’m guilty of doing it too. Interactive videos place more accountability onto students to truly listen and watch videos that expand their knowledge from home. Teachers monitor completion through Nearpod reports and see which students not only understood the content but completed it too. 

5. Student-Created Videos

Technology evolves and expands in ways that make my head spin, and it’s up to educators to ensure students are well equipped to enter this vast land of technology. Also, students learn better through application. Using student accounts in Nearpod, students create their own interactive videos! Giving students the opportunity to create interactive videos through Nearpod aligns with ISTE (International Society for

Technology in Education) standards. Such videos make students “knowledge constructors” and “innovative designers.” It’s also engaging and empowering to students. They are given opportunities to be creative and showcase their skills.  

Students can make videos by following these steps:

1. 1. Click “Create” and then “Video”
2. 2. Search and upload videos through Youtube, Google Drive, etc.
3. 3. Edit the video using “Trim”
4. 4. Choose a spot in video to “Add Activity”
5. 5. Create“Open-Ended” or “Multiple Choice” questions

In order for students to make their own interactive videos, student accounts must be enabled by the administrator. 

*Note: this feature is available for School/District Premium Plus accounts. To learn more about our license types, visit our Pricing Page.

Boldly take your classroom to stellar heights by using Nearpod interactive videos. Nearpod’s lesson library allows easy access to videos that help teachers get started, or smoothly make your own videos with brilliant questions to elevate classroom discussions. So what are you waiting for? Go forth and conquer.

Angelia Simpson

Angelia Simpson has been a first grade teacher for nine years. With a classroom full of minions, she balances the wonderful line of chaos and learning. Passions include writing, technology, reading, and Corgis.

The post 5 ways to use Interactive Video in the classroom appeared first on Nearpod Blog.