#18 Technology to teach reading skills

Reading is one of my favorite sub-subjects under language arts. I enjoy the various genres that it presents. I would love my students to feel the way that I feel about reading. For my students I try to be an exmple of how much I love reading, so that they will mimic me. I also use various pieces of technology to foster their readability and their enjoyment of various ways to read.
In my classroom, I use leapfrog books to provide additional reading practice for students who need help with sounding words out and fluency. I also use online books from www.starfall.com. I was also told about a website by the name of www.audacity.com. There I could record myself reading books to play back to my students as they read along. In addition, I have also learned how to make movies using Windows Movie Maker. I will use these as individual practice models for students to practice fluency, comprehension, and phonics skills. I also would like to teach my students to record each other while reading using video cameras. I would use the recordings as assessmet pieces to assess students' fluency levels. I would be able to see how quickly and easily students read text.
There are many other ways to teach reading using technology. Some other ways would be to have students to write blogs and read others' blogs and visit Internet sites such as www.pbskids.org for phonics games and stories. These tools not only assist teaching students to read, it also serves as motivational pieces to engage students in learning.