The Book Log: Improving Literacy Through Innovation

As individuals, we have core values that not only drive our motivation to help others in our community, but people all around the world. Everyday we look for possible ways to gain insight into how to be more effective at contributing greater value, and most often, are challenged with not having the right tools and applications to achieving these goals and objectives.

I recently received a letter from the elementary school my daughter attends, stating that her reading proficiency is below the expected aptitude for a 9-year old in the fourth grade. From this troublesome news, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I created something that can not only strengthen my daughter’s capabilities, but also make a significant value contribution in the lives of others.

Using my existing BPM cloud platform, I developed a web application to record her reading sessions. Data elements are normalized for each author so that one author can have multiple books as well as multiple book collections. Therefore, each book for each author must be recorded in the BPM cloud platform. During reading intervals, the application automatically generates points for every note entered into the system.

The processes in the application works as follows:

After choosing a book to read, the reader inputs the the author as well as the name of the book. After reading a chapter, at least 3 notes must be recorded before moving on to the next chapter. The reader gets 5 points for each note entered in the book log.

During the first phase of literacy development, the reader is expected to achieve reading 2 chapters per day accumulating 30 points, which is effectively 3 notes per chapter. There are time-stamps on every note which allows the system to capture how long it takes to complete each chapter. Therefore, as the reader improves, the per-day goal can be increased. As an added bonus, the reader gets an extra 5 points added to their total if the per-day goal is achieved.

Reading aloud reinforces articulation, comprehension, temperament, and the overall connection with the story. In addition, writing notes reinforces reflection, grammatical accuracy, spelling, and the ability to gain insight into what the author is trying to convey.

My daughter reads each chapter aloud during her reading sessions and has accumulated 455 points in just 3 weeks. Thanks to the reading activities, she has gained significant confidence as well as a new interest in reading altogether.

In order for us to keep the school informed, I have created an additional login for her teacher to monitor her progress. This is an effective way to keep us in sync with her teachers expectations in addition to providing a streamlined, collaborative process to implementing better strategies that will improve her learning capabilities. Because this data is hosted on the BPM cloud platform, it can be accessed from anywhere and just about any device that supports web or mobile applications.

I am now working with the local school district on creating accounts for other parents that have children with similar issues, in hopes to contribute significant value in their lives. My goal as a parent and a human being is to employ my strengths and capabilities to improve the lives of others, and to provide economic value using effective strategies. The success of this innovation has brought tremendous joy to my family and has reinforced the relationship I have with my daughter.