DERRY — When it comes to how students read today, there is a greater reliance on computers, tablets and other electronic media.

While there are still many avid readers in the schools who plow through as many books as they can get their hands on, there are also many students who don’t think they enjoy reading but don’t realize how much time they spend doing it, according to Kristin Yeaton, a seventh-grade literacy teacher at Gilbert H. Hood Middle School.

Yeaton has collaborated with fellow Hood School seventh-grade literacy teacher Jen Sullivan for the past five years, during which the two have wrestled with ways to improve student achievement and assist those students who might not think of themselves as avid readers.

“The students who say they don’t read still read on the screens of computers, tablets or their phones,” said Yeaton. “The challenge is that they say this doesn’t count.”

To help those students become more comfortable with reading and to use the technology they are familiar with, the two teachers applied for and received a grant of nearly $5,000 through the 21st Century Grant foundation.

With the money, the teachers bought two interactive LCD projectors for their classrooms.

The projectors allow the teachers to highlight, zoom in on, and interact with various texts, from newspaper articles and nonfiction writing to poetry.

“It makes reading a more kinetic activity,” said Yeaton. “We’re hoping to reach out to struggling readers.”

The interactive projectors also make it easier to focus on nonfiction and informational texts, which the school district is putting a greater emphasis on as part of the Common Core state standards.

Sullivan said she has worked with Yeaton as a seventh-grade special education teacher for the past five years but this year she has taken over as the second seventh-grade literacy teacher at the Gilbert H. Hood Middle School.

Each teacher has a projector in their classroom, but Sullivan said the two typically work on the same projects at the same time.

“We’re hoping we can be each other’s teachers as we use this technology,” Sullivan said. “We’re also hoping we can share this technology with each student in the seventh grade.”

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Adam Swift may be reached at aswift@newstote.com.