myON

myON is a student-centred, electronic reader or personalised literacy platform that offers every student unlimited access to an enhanced digital library of books. It can be loaded onto more or less any device the pupil chooses. Students can call up books, decide which they want to read, read them, complete the AR quiz on them, and even do the Star Reading Test (which, of course, can be done multiply as it is item-banked). At the moment, students can access 9,405 digital books, with audio support and other literacy tools. The number of books is growing every week. myON is available 24/7 online and offline, so it can support reading at home as well as school or any other place the pupil happens to be. myON also offers news articles.

Use of myON is mostly in Years 2 through 7, i.e., from lower primary through to the first year of secondary school. A feature of interest is the relatively high numbers of users of myON in preschool and nursery settings, where presumably there is more use of the audio support features of myON.

The number of students using myON increased by 140% from 237,996 to 570,473 (see Table 55, a much larger increase than the previous year). Increases were particularly prominent in Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten, where many of the titles would be read with audio support. Years 2-7 saw a decreased participation percentage, but in later secondary (from Year 8 onward), there was a proportionate increase in use.

Top 20 Books Read with myON

Table 56 gives the top 20 titles for each Year. It is clear that every year, the top titles are quite different from those in the regular book lists and those in the Favourite lists. It may be that reading digitally encourages children to read completely new books and authors.

In Pre-school, four books were in the Henry Helps series. In Nursery, five books were in the Little Lizard series, and two were in the Animal Grows Up series. In Year 1, there were three Animal Grows Up books. Year 2 saw three Hidden Picture Puzzles books (which have no ATOS given their character) and two Animal Grows Up books. Year 3 was dominated by Zeke Meeks (eight books) and four Hidden Picture Puzzles books. Year 4 was even more dominated by Zeke Meeks with 13 books, just as last year, and two Hidden Picture Puzzles books. In Year 5 the Zeke Meeks influence decline to one book, and there were three Hidden Picture Puzzles books, two Survival Stories and two Legend stories. One book was specifically sub-titled Graphic Novel (although many other books were also graphic novels).

In Year 6, there was much more variety, with two books in the Haunted series, the appearance of Black Beauty and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Year 7 there was considerable variety and more classic titles began to appear, such as Kidnapped, Oliver Twist and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In Year 8 appeared Frankenstein, The Tempest, Dracula and A Christmas Carol. Year 9 had Romeo & Juliet (at number one) and Treasure Island, with three A Mermaid’s Journey books. Year 10 had The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Graphic Novel and three A Mermaid’s Journey books. Year 11 had Wuthering Heights with an ATOS of 11.3 (UK 12.3), so clearly, there are difficult books among the myON menus. Year 12 had The War of the Worlds at ATOS 9.1 and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at 7.8. However, it also had Buzz Beaker and the Speed Secret at ATOS 2.0.

In terms of difficulty, for preschool and Nursery, ATOS was high (1.7 and 2.1, UK 2.7 and 3.1), which might reflect the heavy use of audiobook facilities within this age range. For Years 1 through 3, ATOS for myON was also high but plateauing (3.0, 3.1, 3.1, UK about 4.1), so that by Year 3 students were reading only a year ahead of their chronological age. In Year 4, ATOS was again 3.1 (UK 4.1), so students were reading books just at their chronological age. In Year 5, ATOS was 3.5 UK 4.5), so students were reading books half a year behind their chronological age. In Year 6, ATOS was 4.2 (UK 5.2), so the gap was widening. In Year 7, ATOS was 4.7 (UK 5.7), so students were reading almost a year and a half behind their chronological age. In Year 7 ATOS was 5.7 (UK 6.7), so at least the gap was not widening. In Year 9 ATOS was 5.5 (UK 6.5), so again students slid backwards.

Thus, Pre-school through Year 3 showed high difficulty, possibly supported by audiobooks. Students read with myON above their chronological age from Year 1 through Year 4. Beyond this point, difficulty never kept pace with the increase in student age, albeit with some bouncing about. Overall, this is a worse situation than was the case with paper hard copy books. This may be because a number of these myON books were graphic novels, which tended to have lower readability.

Frequency of Use of myON

The number of books completed (as distinct from books accessed) was 7,724,197 (an increase of 80% over last year, but a considerably lower percentage than the increased number of pupils). The amount of time spent reading fiction was 238,394 hours. Books completed were 13.54 books per pupil, substantially reduced from 18 last year.

When Do Students Use myON?

The majority of reading time is during the day within school (1,201,324,797 seconds, 68.66%, a slight proportional increase from last year). In the morning before school reading time was 23,377,476 seconds (1.34%), unsurprisingly low and a very similar proportion to last year. After-school reading time was 393,384,024 seconds (22.48%), only a little lower than last year. Only 131,680,861 seconds (7.53%) were at the weekend (much as last year). The total seconds read were 1,749,767,158. This reflects the extent to which myON is extending the reading behaviour of students beyond school. It seems that pupils tend to use myON much more within school time rather than their own free time, which is a rather troubling tendency.

Summary

myON is an electronic reader that can be loaded onto any device and gives access to e-books, some with audio and other supports. It can support reading at home as well as school, or any other place the pupil happens to be. myON also offers news articles. Use of myON is mostly in Years 2 through 7. There are also relatively high numbers of users of myON in preschool and nursery settings, where, presumably, there is more use of the audio support features.

The top 20 titles for each year are given. Every year, the top titles are quite different from those in the regular book lists and the Favourite lists. In terms of difficulty, Pre-school through Year 3 showed high difficulty, possibly supported by audiobooks, while for Years 1 to 4, difficulty was above the students’ chronological ages. After this, difficulty plateaued while the students grew older, making the gap wider each year. This may be because a number of these books were graphic novels, which tended to have lower readability. On the other hand, myON included some classic books of very high readability, and these appeared in the top 20s.

The number of pupils using myON rose by 140% but the number of books read per pupil declined. It seems pupils do little reading in the morning or at the weekend. Compared to last year, it seems that pupils are tending to use myON even more within school time rather than their own free time.