Monday, May 11, 2009

The mark-my-time stopwatch bookmark

Please give us your ideas about how to use this reading tool.

It’s a bookmark with a stopwatch on it. So - kind of cool.
As soon as my son saw it, he wanted to use it right away – for sure, that’s a good thing.

But then I got thinking. If I was a kid who wasn’t that into reading, would I want to have that inexorable clock, ticking down the minutes? Mightn’t it make reading more of a chore?

So I spoke with some teachers at my son’s school. Here are their ideas:
*It’s good, because the child knows that when time’s up, they’re done for the day.
*You can use it to “count up” the minutes – and give them a reward after a certain amount of time.
*Kids can set it to two minutes. When the two minutes are up, that’s their cue to stop and think about what they’ve read. In this way, it could be a reading comprehension tool.

So I’m thinking that the mark-my-time bookmark could be really great for some kids. Anyway, for about $10 (or $8.95 US), it’s worth a shot if it’ll get your kid reading.

Disclosure: When I read about this product online and decided I wanted to blog about it, I contacted the company and they sent me the product to review. I haven't received any monetary compensation, and can write whatever I want about the product - if it was no good, I'd tell you. (Or probably just not blog about it.)

You probably have other ideas about how to use this product, or some other kind of "reading-timing" device. Please post 'em in the comments!

Yes, I took this picture in my garden. Don't ask me why.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What will they think of next?? Thanks for bringing this cool tool to our attention!