Listen to Reading

For all of you Daily 5ers out there:

How do you manage Listen to Reading?

I have 4 iPods and 1 iPad that we use for LtR. Last year's group managed it well on their own and I had to interfere very little. They were able to share the 5 devices among everyone without conflict. THIS YEAR'S GROUP--we have tears. And tears. And tears. And tears. And tantrums. Lord, have mercy, my bunch this year is very emotional. :/

SO, this is what I came up with to manage who gets access to the iPods and iPad each day to avoid the tears and tantrums about them.

#1: We do Daily 5 in 2 separate groups.

I split my class in half by ability; during round 1, group 1 works with me for phonics/spelling while group 2 does Daily 5. After 15 minutes, we switch groups. Round 2 is the same except we work on reading in small group instead of phonics/spelling.

#2: You may not have a second turn at LtR until everyone in the group has used the devices once (or at least has had the opportunity to use the devices).

This is our LtR management board:

The colored magnets near the bottom of the board have the kids' names on them, placed in their respective group. Right below the title, "Listen to Reading," you see a sign that looks like this:

This is where the students sign up to use a device. To sign up, they just move their magnet to cover one of the devices on the sign, like so:

Ideally, the magnets for each group would all be the same color. I will do that next year. This year, it was a last-minute idea so the magnets aren't the same because I had to use what I had! Initially, I actually had everyone in one big group so color wasn't a big deal until I decided to split them into 2. Oh, well. It still works. The kids do a great job of paying attention to who is in what group (mostly because they are ALWAYS all up in each other's business) so it works for us. No confusion thus far.

After Daily 5 is over, we simply move the magnets into the pail that sits between the groups of magnets. (If we do run into confusion with colors as described in the previous paragraph, I will just use two different pails to house the used magnets.) 

After majority of the magnets in a group are in the pail, we put them back on the board to sign up again. I say majority because if less than 5 students' magnets are left on the board, then there will be extra free spots for others to sign up.

If a student chooses not to do LtR at all, then he/she moves his/her name into the bucket at the beginning of round 1 so we know that he/she is choosing not to participate. This avoids the problem of waiting for someone to take a turn when he/she does not even want a turn.

So far, this has worked VERY well. The kids even take ownership and move the magnets in and out of the bucket for me! No tears over that yet. :)

#3: You must follow the rules in order to continue to use the devices.

Period. Dot. This will not be a problem to a lot of them at all, so I feel that revoking the privilege is fine for those who are deserving. As a reminder of the rules we came up with together, this mini poster is taped to the management board and to the area where the LtR books and devices are kept:

Click on the above picture if you would like a copy of this mini poster!

LtR is easily a popular choice during Daily 5, so this management system has really helped us keep potential problems under control.

What do you think? How do you manage your devices?