Voicethread is a flexible web-based resource that can integrated into a variety of classroom activities. Below you'll find a number of content area reading strategies that leverage the power and potential of Voicethread to provide best-practice instructional for students.

Literature Circles

Through the use of VoiceThread, students can participate in literature circles with their classmates, students in different classrooms in the same school, and even students in different parts of the country or world! Teachers can structure the layout based on what they want their students to focus on or allow students to create their own layout. Each student can post a VoiceThread based on his/her assignment (discussion director, connector, illustrator, etc.) or all of the students in the literature circle could post their work to a single VoiceThread. Students would then be able to comment and respond to each other.

Book Reviews

Students who have written book reviews can create VoiceThreads based on their writing. Classmates, other interested students, or even family members are able to comment on the book review and suggest other books for the students to read. Several examples are already on VoiceThread.

Book Reports

In order to provide opportunities for higher levels of thinking, teachers can challenge students to create book reports using VoiceThread. There are endless possibilities of what students can create. This type of activity could meet several state standards in reading, writing, and presentation of information to peers.

Reader's Theater

Reader's Theater is a popular classroom activity. If you want to take it to the next level, you can record your students reading the script and create a VoiceThread. Classmates and families would be able to listen to it whenever they wanted. In order to extend the activity, students who are not yet efficient readers could follow along with the script while listening to the VoiceThread.

Biographies

Another popular instructional activity in numerous grades is reading and writing biographies. Students can research the person of their choice and create a written report of their findings. Then, students can find pictures of their subject to use as slides in their VoiceThread. The teacher and classmates can then watch and respond to each student's VoiceThread biography.

Summaries

Students can use VoiceThread to create summaries for stories and even concepts learned in the content areas. The students can write the summaries, find pictures to use as a single slide or multiple slides in their VoiceThread, and then record themselves reading their summaries. Classmates can respond with comments and questions.

Timelines

This instructional activity is completed at various grade levels. Students can use VoiceThread to take this activity to another level. Researching the events through books and the Internet can prepare students to create a comprehensive timeline. While researching, students can find pictures to use for their VoiceThread. Once all of the information is compiled, students can create a timeline using VoiceThread.

Peer Teaching

There is an example  of a student who created a VoiceThread to show classmates how to do two-digit subtraction with regrouping using the pen feature. Other students then tried to complete the same math problem using the pen feature.

Classroom Updates

Teachers can use VT to upload pictures and comment on what is going on in their classrooms. Students can even be involved in taking the pictures and commenting depending on their grade level.