Hello,
As Christine mentioned, Xreading does some of what you describe. It is an online graded reader library service (with a large number of readers from several publishers) combined with an LMS for ER. It does track time spent on task on the readers and allows minimum and maximum reading speeds to be set (which helps prevent just flipping through to the end of a book quickly or just keeping a page open for a long time to appear to spend a lot of time on task, both things which students assigned to do ER will do when their focus is on getting credit rather than actual language improvement). It allows to set specific assignments for classes for periods from a week to the whole term, set ranges of reading material levels available, etc. It gives teachers information on books completed, books checked out but not completed, quiz scores (pretty simple quizzes, and teacher can set pass/fail mark), WPM reading rate, etc. I believe that it also allows students to get credit, somehow in coordination with Mreader quiz completion, for readers from outside the Xreading library. As far as I know, it doesn't track the time on task for those, and not other kinds of reading done as ER.
Xreader does track a lot of data as well for books and word counts read and allows some similar functionality but does not provide the actual reading materials and therefore does not track time on task.
I know various teachers who have used things like Google Forms or Sheets to set up online logs which have included time on task for their own classes or schools. These are self-reported, where the student has to input either start and end times for reading or daily total times.
As might be obvious, all of these are at least partially focused on the teacher side, motivating and assessing ER required for language classes. Is that also what you are envisioning, or are you thinking about something that is more for self-motivated learners to track their own voluntary extensive reading (and maybe share it socially) similar to some of the fitness apps?
Thomas E. Bieri
Reading and Vocabulary IS Chair-Elect
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Thomas E. Bieri
Nanzan University, Japan
Associate Member, Extensive Reading Foundation
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Original Message:
Sent: 18-09-2020 07:21 PM
From: Andromeda Romano-Lax
Subject: EXTENSIVE READING APP? (For logging hours, time spent reading)
Greetings colleagues,
I am researching the possibility of developing an app to make it easier for ESL/EFL students and independent learners to log how much they read (all materials, not only books, by time and/or pages/words), and to watch their progress toward a specified goal. The goal is promoting ER, motivation and self-efficacy.
I have not found similar apps online, though I have found more general reading log apps for non-ESL children.
Does anyone here know of, or use, ESL/EFL an app specifically for logging quantity of extensive reading?
Thank you for your expertise!
P.S. Even a negative answer, i.e. "don't know of one," or "not sure" will help me!
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Andromeda Romano-Lax
Graduate Student
Canada
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