Subtext is a powerful e-reader designed for education.
Community Review for Subtext
My Take
My take is that this is a mainstay tool for every classroom, k-12. I believe a web-based version is in beta testing now, although I believe that will be a paid tool. Upgrading to the paid version on the iPad is relatively affordable for groups as small as 10 up to and entire school can be licensed. With the paid version, one can get text to voice feature for struggling readers, though the voice is a little mechanical.
How I Use It
I used this product when my class read a class novel in Subtext. I was able to highlight passages and ask questions about the content. Questions can be multiple choice, true/false or discussion based. I liked that I could make answered not visible until a student responded, so they didn't just copy what the rest of the class said about the passage. The discussion feature worked the best in the free version, the polling feature was limited in bigger classes, so with future use, I would split my class up by period. I also used an audio form of the classic from iTunes University so my students were reading on Subtext and listening to an audio version at the same time. It was a pretty powerful blend of technologies to support reading.
I also was able to take short articles online and save to Subtext and do the same types of activities, making this an excellent reader for all content areas as there are no limits to the type of text one can read in Subtext.