Authors: Andrea Rolf, Jenna Russell, Renee Scott, Elizabeth Smith

Welcome to Tar Heel Reader!

Tar Heel Reader is a website designed by the University of North Carolina. It is a collection of easy to read books and stories for children of all ages. There is the option to read a book or write your own book to share. Books can be modified to meet students needs depending on ability. Tar Heel is easy to navigate and easy to use. 

How does Tar Heel Reader work?

Tar Heel Reader is a website for beginning readers of any age. It is a great literacy site for younger students learning to read and for students with disabilities in any field. Tar Heel Reader allows stories to be adjusted by font (for visual impairments), color (for sensory issues), and has a speech enabled option with various voices for students to be read to which allows them to follow along. Another option on the Tar Heel Reader website is creating your own stories and books specifically for students, or allowing them to create their own stories.  Tar Heel Reader can be found at: http://tarheelreader.org

Basic Instructions to find books

     On the main page, instructions are given for continued use.  One can either find a book to look at and read via the “find a book” link, or they can chose to write their own books via the “Write a book” link. 

     1. If the link “find a book” is clicked, the next screen will show a variety of books. 

     2. One can either scroll through the books shown or find a particular book.  This can be done by typing in the box the option or using one of the drop-down menus provided. 

     3. The book can be changed from English to a variety of languages including German, Greek, and Arabic. 

     4.  Once a book is found, click on the picture and the book will appear. 

     5.  On the bottom right corner, there is a link that turns the book to the next page, and the link on the bottom left corner takes you to the previous page. 

     6. If the person wishes to, they can add the book to their favorite list by clicking on the heart icon in the upper right corner. 

     7.  If they wish to be read to or change the color of the text, the circle icon should be pressed.  This icon will give a drop-down menu of what is needed to be done to achieve either color or sound.

     8. To reach the main menu for more help or to find another book to read, click on the icon on the upper left-hand side. 

Creating stories on Tar Heel Reader

     1.  Click the link "write a book"

     2. The page will open up to a new page that will provide the directions to create a story

     3. Upload pictures to create your story either by downloading your own pictures or using the picture library provided 

     4. Enter short sentences following each picture 

     5. Title the book, enter the author, and categorize the book if desired

     6. Publish the book

Teaching and Learning Applications

Tar Heel Reader can be used in a classroom at any elementary level.  It will be especially useful in the primary grades.  Outlined below are 3 ways to integrate Tar Heel Reader into the classroom.

Group Reading Lessons: Tar Heel Reader can be used on a promethean board for whole class literacy lessons.  Finding a book (or creating one) for a whole class lesson helps strengthen the students recognition of sight words, concepts of print, and decoding skills.  By using an interactive whiteboard or promethean board, you can ask students to circle known sight words, count the number of words in a sentence and work on punctuation or capital letters.

ESL/ELL Students:  Creating books for ESL students to read in your classroom will help them with current curriculum already being used.  The books can be created using different vocabulary words, science experiments, or class activities.  By adding pictures to each page, students will have a visual to use that will be accompanied by words to strengthen their English.  This would also be helpful with the speech tool in Tar Heel, that reads the books for the kids.  By selecting either the child, women or man icon, you can select what the computer generated voice will sound like.  By having the student follow along, you will increase their fluency within their second language.

Creating Original Books:  Creating books on Tar Heel Reader would be good at any age.  This could be used  with an older grade allowing them to create text and select pictures that support a current lesson in science or literacy.  They would then share the books with their book buddy class, which is a primary grade.  This tool would allow for the older grades to have access to the creativity of creating their own books and allowing them the benefit of teaching to a younger student.  The younger students will benefit from learning from their older peers.  This is a highly effective way for students to learn, and will create a great lesson for the primary grade.

Younger students can use also use Tar Heel Reader to create books as a class or individually. This will help these students with their literacy skills as they learn and understand the way books are written and the different concepts of print. This can easily translate into better comprehension skills later on, as they will have a first-hand experience of knowing how a book is made. It will also teach them to write and read for a purpose, as they will create the book to inform their audience. This can help them better discover the purpose of other books in the future

Special education: This is a popular literacy tool used for students with disabilities because, similar to ELL students, it allows the stories to be adjusted and fitted to their needs. The color, speech and level of the book all can be selected to fit the exact needs of a specific student. This is also a great tool for student with disabilities to create their own story. It is often helpful for students with disabilities to put together a story about themselves or their family and share it with others. This also helps them with their reading and writing skills but is fit to their level of ability.  

Homework tool: Students can use the Tar Heel Reader as a homework tool. This provides students with access to a large variety of books that can be accessed on any computer. It would be a great homework tool as students could complete their nightly reading practice with their own choice of subject matter. Also, this will make reading less of a chore for children and more of a fun/interactive experience. This can also be very beneficial for students if they are struggling while reading alone because the Tar Heel Reader has many different scaffolds to assist the students (such as the read-aloud option).

Additional Resources that can be used with Tar Heel Reader

1.     http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=11415  (Classroom Integration)

2.     http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=870  (Literacy Integration Ideas)

3.     http://www.cpalms.org/resources/PublicPreviewResource19241.aspx  (Science lesson using Tar Heel)

4.     http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/thjha/AnnotatedBibLessonFINAL.pdf  (Lesson Plan using Junior Historian Tar Heel Association)

5.     http://mjlozdigitalportfolio.weebly.com/lesson-plan-3.html  (Lesson plan for special education with Tar Heel Reader)

6.     http://spedblog.com/2011/12/08/tar-heel-reader-adapted-books-to-read-and-write/ (Special Ed blog from personal experience using Tar Heel)

7.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ6ZT4m4qeo   (example of a teachers personal explanation and use of Tar Heel Reader)

8.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwp1kZgYccc (Example of the use of Tar Heel Reader with the added tutorial on the use of Power Talk)

9.     http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html (Writing Prompt Generator) 

10.    http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/kids-writing-lesson-plan-write-a-book.html (Example Lesson Plan for Book Writing)

11.    http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/reading-logs.htm (Printable Reading Logs for Teacher Use)