Hello, all. I'm a tenured professor of Instructional Technology in the School of Education for a large public university... and, I'm new on this list. I'd like to share a new open source online early reading initiative called "Let's Read Along!' designed for young readers in the Mississippi Delta of northeast Louisiana. Early reading is our greatest issue in elementary education. These are original curated working examples of interactive "read alongs" designed for young children: 1. This is an advanced "read-along" story called "Windswept": http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/2b/ 2. This is a very basic "read-along" song for learning the ABC's called "Alphabet Song": http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/ns-abc/ 3. This is a popular and traditional "read-along" song called "Hunting We Will Go": <http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/ns-abc/>http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/ns-hunting-we-will-go/ <http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/ns-hunting-we-will-go/index.html>4. This is a rhyming story about sharing called "A Tasty Treat": https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/tasty-treat/index.html <http://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/ns-hunting-we-will-go/index.html> 5. This song is about the salmon life cycle. It's called "Salmon Song": https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/salmon-song/index.html 6. This rhyming story is about "Tiny Tadpoles": https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/tiny-tadpoles/index.html 7. What happens when it snows? It's a "Snow Day": https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/snow-day/index.html 8. This is a simple French song called "Bonjour": https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/bonjour/index.html 9. This rhyming story is one of our most popular! <https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/apple-pie/index.html>https://ulm.edu/aceadventures/ah/apple-pie/index.html By the end of this year, we'll have over 100 freely available online reading applications available from our university website. This program will grow and be persistent for years to come. A doctoral student is in the process of examining the effectiveness of this new free resource. In early 2019, we have scheduled a media event to launch this resource in elementary schools across Louisiana as a 100% free online resource. While it's premature, I really did want to help celebrate literacy by sharing this information in advance... at this time. By early 2019, we will have visual tutorials for anyone who would like to use the open source software framework to freely develop "read alongs" without restrictions or cost. Regards, Mike Beutner ========================================================================== Mike Beutner, Ph.D., Instructional Technology, Associate Professor, Walker Hall 2-25, School of Education, University of Louisiana at Monroe Coordinator, Educational Technology Graduate Program http://ulm.edu/~beutner/EdTech/ Office/Voice Mail: (318) 342-3142 Email: beutner@ulm.edu Office Hours: http://ulm.edu/~beutner/#Office_Hours<http://ulm.edu/%7Ebeutner/#Office_Hours>