Margaret Allen, who was an experienced primary teacher before joining Renaissance, says the key thing to understand about myON is that it is fundamentally a tool “teachers can use to enhance what they are already doing”.
While the New Group Reading Test and Star Reading assessments provide reliable, consistent ways to evaluate the reading skills of children, myON supports the teacher-directed daily practice that students need if they are to become fluent readers. Based on a digital library of over 7,000 high-quality, culturally diverse texts, it provides an easy way to ensure these skills are practised in real time in the classroom and then developed further at home.
Margaret Allen, Curriculum and Education Specialist, Renaissance
myON allows teachers to model teach the skills around a rich reading experience.
What is myON
Margaret explains that although myON is a cross-curricular reading platform tailored to individual student ability, it is first and foremost a tool designed to complement and support teaching. Yes, it gives students 24/7 access to thousands of fiction and non-fiction books as well as age-appropriate news articles. But at its heart it is a teaching aid that “allows teachers to model teach the skills around a rich reading experience”.
She gives an example to illustrate what she means. “In one of the books on the platform there's a great picture of a mother giraffe standing with her legs around her baby calf. And the text talks about how the giraffe’s legs are really powerful and strong. The children can see how the giraffe is using the strongest parts of her body to protect her baby. And in the background, there's a lioness. Now nowhere in the text is a lioness mentioned but a teacher can draw the children’s attention to this lioness and explore with them why she poses a threat and why the mother giraffe is standing around her baby. The teacher doesn’t need to read the text on that page but I bet you those children will want to go home and read the book the extract was from to see what happens next.”
Lessons like this put reading in context and spark discussion, “and from that follows vocabulary acquisition, language development, nuance, inference, deduction… all those skills that children need. A teacher just needs to say the words, they don't need to start telling children the definition but when children hear them, they get it. It's like a light bulb goes on.”
Why is teacher-directed reading key?
myON is so effective, Margaret says, because it is teacher-directed, structured reading. “Children don't go home and say, ‘I've been told to find three books on myON, and that's what I'm going to do.’ They just don't. It doesn’t work.”
What they need, she says, is direction. “The teacher may say, ‘On Monday we’re going to learn about food chains. I want you to learn six facts from these two books. And when we open these books, you may not know what all the words mean but you will know that the shark eats the otter and the otter eats the fish, and we will be able to discuss words like ‘predator’…’
“Back in class they can have a discussion about predators and food chains and where humans might fit in the food chain, and that sparks further interest. When that happens, in my experience, 9 in 10 children will want to read more at home from the books suggested. That’s the beauty of myON.”
myON is so effective because it is teacher-directed, structured reading.
myON is designed to provide content for the appropriate skill level of students.
How can myON engage students with different reading abilities?
The platform is designed to provide content for the appropriate skill level of students – so they aren’t deterred by too challenging or under-challenging material. The whole class approach, Margaret says, is invaluable. “The less able can listen to the more able articulating a text in a way that their peers understand and appreciate what's being said. It will always be the case that a 10-year-old talking to another 10-year-old will express things in a way that other children automatically understand.
“It's the collaboration, the discussion, the clarification. It's about asking the right questions, thinking back to something the class has already done and activating prior knowledge. All of those elements that give the scaffolding blocks for children to become better equipped to access text.”
Can it save teachers time?
“Yes, and the reason it does is because it reinforces the key elements being taught. myON is an additional resource in a teacher’s toolkit because it allows them to dig deeper and embellish the experience for their students. And the fact that myON has subject-specific content, which students can access 24/7, means that children can explore a subject in greater depth out of school.”
Nor is myON difficult for teachers to learn how to use – “it naturally blends with the normal, everyday teaching environment, where a teacher models and explores the curriculum with the children.”
How does myON help with parental engagement?
“Once children have mastered the reading basics, parents often struggle to support their children’s reading development. myON allows them to see how long their child has spent on a particular book and where their interests might lie, and it also indicates further reading and additional sources of information they and their children may want to explore together on all kinds of topics.
"It’s also a great tool for parents whose first language may not be English. myON has an audio feature which allows families to enjoy texts together. For parents whose first language may not be English, and who don’t always have English language texts in their home, this can be a valuable tool to introduce families to a wide variety of books.”
It’s also a great tool for parents whose first language may not be English.
With myON News teachers receive five student-friendly articles every weekday.
What functionality does myON have to help the student?
“Not only is it a multi-media platform – including text, audio and video – it also has several functions that allow the student to progress in a way that suits them. Every time a student comes across a fact they’re interested in, or a key word that they're not sure about, they can copy and paste it into a writing journal, for instance, and that becomes the basis of a document or assignment.
“Or if they want to practise reading out loud but are embarrassed to do it in front of others, they can choose a piece, press record, listen to it and play it back and repeat if necessary until they’re happy with it. This also means that teachers can listen to their students read at any time, too.”
What other content does myON have?
As well as its thousands of fiction and non-fiction books, myON can also be upgraded to include myON News, which delivers developmentally appropriate content based on current events in a year-round daily news feed.
“We publish five student-friendly articles every weekday, which are written by journalists for Year 1 to Year 9 students, and which have been reviewed by a child psychologist. Individual articles incorporate links to multimedia resources and books within myON to help students further understand and explore topics,” Margaret explains.
Articles are available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Mandarin, and they are presented at three reading levels in English. Multimedia features are also available within each article.
Margaret Allen is a Curriculum and Education Specialist at Renaissance, incorporating GL Assessment
