Our guest post is about  a teacher who developed a very tech savvy, yet practical way of helping children with their reading.

The Skyping Reading Tutor? Who ever heard of a Skyping Reading Tutor. Well, now that the Internet continues to develop, this innovate teacher is able to teach children to read with Skype. She does all of her assessments online, finds out what skills are strong, what skills need to be developed, and creates a personalized curriculum for each student. She is finding that the struggling readers of today love learning how to read with her online.

Typically, students who cannot read well do not spend a lot of time on the computer. This gives them an opportunity to be on the computer, see their teacher, and be guided to increase their reading level.

The Skyping Reading Tutor has found that students are excited to learn via Skype being that they are in the comfort their own home where they feel safe. She finds that her students take risks and tell her things that they may be embarrassed to say during class time where the other students can judge what they are saying.

The Skyping Reading Tutor also volunteers in classrooms reading books to kids all over the world via Skype. Her passion is to motivate all children to read. She inspires kids to read by sharing the best books out there for them. She also works with teachers to find out what books would be best to share with each of the classes and schedules a 15 minute Skype session with them. Then she shares her experience of reading to kids online on her blog at http://skypingreadingtutor.wordpress.com.

She has a ton of favorite experiences with skyping in the classroom, but the one that stands out to her the most is the classroom that was learning their spelling words to buy a goat for children in Africa. The Skyping Reading Tutor read Beatrice’s Goat, which is a true story about how a goat changed one families life and helped a young girl raise enough money to go to school. The children in this class had earned $10 so far and it was their goal to earn enough money to buy 2 goats. The cost of one goat is $120. These children were passionate and motivated. The teacher was unable to find the book Beatrice’s Goat and the Skyping Reading Tutor was able to share it with them via Skype’s share screen feature. The experience increased their desires to raise the money.

So who is this Skyping Reading Tutor? Her name is Joanne Kaminski and she has taught in the public school system for over 10 years. She taught 3rdand 4th grade in the inner city where 75% of her students struggled with reading. She became a reading coordinator for her school and went back for her Master’s degree as a Reading Specialist. She has created her own business to tutor children online called Bright IDEA Reading Tutoring and has students all over the United States. To find out more information you can check her out at http://www.wix.com/jbkaminski/tutoring.

Be sure to visit the “Can Do” Kids blog and see Joanne reading a poem she wrote to her daughter’s class via Skype at www.candostreet.com/blog-kids/