Scholastic
(http://www.scholastic.com/home/) website is for teachers, parents, kids,
administrators, and librarians. It started
as a classroom magazine in 1920 and has evolved into publishing, selling, and
distributing books and educational materials for children, teachers, parents,
and schools. Scholastic’s mission is “to encourage the intellectual and
personal growth of all children, beginning with literacy.”
Registration is free however; you
may purchase items such as books, magazines, teaching and classroom materials. On
the homepage there is the Scholastic Book Club where you can use the flyers
given by the teacher or librarian and purchase the books online. The
homepage also has the Scholastic Classroom Magazines and Scholastic News that
you can subscribe to. On the top
homepage you will see tabs for teachers, kids, parents, administrators, and
librarians. Each tab will take you to
another homepage filled with numerous literacy content.
The teacher’s homepage provides
teachers with the Scholastic Book Club, lesson plans, teacher tool kits,
videos, and more. Scholastic provides
lesson plans for grades K through 12 in all subject areas and links books that
you can use and purchase. The teacher
tool kit gives teachers access to purchase teaching materials. Scholastic has thousands of videos such as
virtual fields trips, holiday, historical figures, books, and authors. It has
Scholastic Teachables which provides teachers with printables, Mini-Books,
lessons, and clip arts that they can download for free or purchase by subscribing.
The kid’s section has two homepages,
Family Playground for ages 3-7 and Scholastic Kids ages 8-12. The Family Playground has games such as I SPY,
Word Girl, Magic School Bus, and more.
Kids can play games based on storybook characters. They also have a section of stories such as
Clifford and Alice in Wonderland. In Scholastic Kids, students are able to
search for books of their interest, play games such as Tombquest and Spirit
Animals, and download apps like Shadow House or Horizon. Lastly, they have a
message board on numerous books where students can community with others about
books they have read.
The parent homepage offers parents
to purchase books, read articles, and print out free printables for their
child. It also provides a book list that
parents can browse through seasonal books, classic books, and popular
books. The articles that Scholastic
offers are relatable to family life such as, integrating technology with
reading, different ways your child learns, and even healthy and easy recipes. The administration homepage shows how
Scholastic has partnered with school districts on literacy instruction and professional
development. The librarian homepage provides
librarian’s author videos, fall book previews, and monthly newsletter updates.
Scholastic is a great website
because it has been here for generations and has expanded to an online
access. It is the word’s largest
publisher and distributor of children’s books.
Scholastic is serving customers in more than 165 countries and 45
languages. The website provides lesson
plans, games, articles, blogs, printables, and videos to enhance literacy.
Storybird
(https://storybird.com/) is a free website that allows students
to create stories and poems using illustrations from the website. Storybird has
picture books that are ideal for short, visual stories. Students can use an artist’s portfolio or
search a theme and load the images into the editor. They can add pages, play with the images, and
add text.
Storybird allows users to write
novels or long chapters. The chapter
book format allows users to choose or create a cover page. Students can use
long chapters to practice creating a story, plot, and characters. There are no word limits per chapter and
users can add as many chapters. Students can also create poems. They can find an image and use words to drag
over the art or image. Teachers can view student’s progress, provide feedback,
and give grades.
Teachers can create an account and
create different classes. Storybird
allows teachers to create assignments and provides a class code so students can
login at school or at home. In
assignments teachers can write a summary or set instructions to explain the assignment. Teachers can also provide a link to explain
or inspire students. They can use media
from Storybird, Youtube, or Vimeo.
Lastly, teachers can create a word list that students must use in their
stories and assign the due dates. The
due dates will appear on the student’s dashboards as a reminder to complete the
assignment.
Storybird can be access on any
device and students can log in using their class passcode. All stories and poems can be read on any
device and be downloaded as ePubs, PDFs, and .mobi files. Storybird inspires students to create, write,
and develop stories. It can be used for
all ages and for all subjects. Teachers
can have student create individual stories or have them collaborate in
teams. Storybird is a great tool for children
to explore literacy by creating and inspiring them to be storytellers.
Oxford
Owl (https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk) was created by the United Kingdoms leading
education publisher, Oxford University Press.
The website has two parts, Oxford Owl for School and Oxford Owl for
Home. It is filled with free activities,
games, and resources.
Oxford Owl for School provides
teachers with a growing range of tools and resources, including eBooks,
storytelling videos, activity sheets, and assessments. Teachers are able to explore free resources
such as, Read Write Inc. Spelling or Phonics, Oxford Dictionaries, Big Writing,
and more. Each link gives articles,
assessments, and worksheets that teachers can use in the classroom. The eBooks allows teachers to create a class
login and can be used as a class read aloud or independent reading. Each eBook has activities relating to the
story and teachers can use it as a quick assessment on student’s comprehension
of the story.
Oxford Owl for Home provides parents
and children with literacy and math resources. Oxford Owl for Home provides
thousands of free eBooks for ages 3-11. It has 6 stages of reading from first
steps to independent reader. With each
stage children are able to build up and have more confidence in reading All the
eBooks include exciting activities to keep reading fun. It also provides tips
and advice so parents can support their child.
Oxford Owl for Home offers flash cards, reading kits, and activity books
that parents can purchase.
Overall, Oxford Owl is a great resource for parents,
teachers, and students because it provides various literacy tools and
activities. Students are able to access
Oxford Owl anywhere using the Internet and in any device. Parents are able to monitor their child’s
reading and see what stage of reading their child is in. Teachers have access to numerous teaching
resources to enhance student learning.
Vocabulary.co.il
(https://www.vocabulary.co.il) is an online vocabulary building game. It
provides language games, literature games, and foreign language games. The vocabulary games include crossword
puzzles, word search, build words, and hangman, which they call HangMouse. Users can choose the vocabulary words on the
games to help support their learning.
Vocabulary.co.il is a great website for teachers to have students play
on the mobile carts or by displaying it on the board with a smart board or
projector. It helps build the vocabulary
skills in the classroom.
Students can also practice at home
using a desktop or laptop to enhance learning at home. Vocabulary.co.il is a free website with
thousands of games. It also includes
games for English as Second Language (ESL) students. They have games such as English Word
Recognition where they show cards of pictures and students can repeat the name of
the picture. Vocabulary.co.il provides matching games for sight words, color
words, and homophones.
Vocabulary.co.il has various topics
and games within those topics that users can choose. It has topics such as
Analogy, Antonym, Compound Word, Idioms, Literature, Phonics, Syllables, and
more. Users can also use the search
engine to find other topics. Once users click on the topic of their choice it
will provide games for different grade levels.
The games are sorted into four categories: K-2nd, 3rd-5th,
6th-8th, and 9th-12th.
Vocabulary.co.il is a fun
educational website that helps students build on their vocabulary, language,
and phonics skills. It provides hundreds
of games for students to spark interest in learning and comprehending new
vocabulary words. This is a great
website to use in the classroom and at home.
Reading
Bear (http://www.readingbear.org/) is a free online program that is a part
of WatchKnowLearn.org that supports beginning
readers with phonetic patterns and vocabulary skills. Reading Bear has about 50
presentations. It builds on consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, CVCE words,
syllables, digraphs, initial blends, vowel teams, and more.
For each phonetic pattern there are
seven different kinds of presentations. It starts off with Sound it Out Slowly,
then Sound it Out Quickly, and Let me Sound it Out. That presentation says the
word in different speeds and illustrates a picture, shows the word in a
sentence, and illustrates that sentence. When the sentence appears you can
pause the video and click on any word and it will sound it out and say it. The
presentation also includes Audio Flashcards, Silent Flashcards, Audio
Sentences, and Silent Sentences. After each presentation you can Take a Quiz
and also Review the whole unit.
Each presentation has control
buttons that allows you to go around a presentation. The Auto button plays the
presentation as a video. If you turn it
off, you can use the arrow buttons to go back and forth. On top of the
presentation, you can control the presentation size. Reading Bear also has a settings button that
allows users to change the font or always show video of word spoken.
Registering on Reading Bear is
optional but if you do register it will show the percentage of presentations
you’ve mastered, and how many you viewed. Checkmarks, stars, and numbers let
you track how many times you viewed a presentation, or parts of a presentation,
and also whether you’ve mastered the words.
Reading Bear is an excellent website for young children to build and
master phonetic sounds and words.
Storyline
Online (https://www.storylineonline.net) is a SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s award-winning
children’s literacy website. It streams
videos featuring actors reading children’s book with elaborate
illustrations. Actors include Oprah
Winfrey, Kristen Bell, Ed O’Neill, Viola Davis, Elijah Woods, and many more. Storyline Online allows children to engage
themselves in reading and storytelling.
Storyline Online has about 50 books
that teachers, students, and parents can use. Each book has a detailed description
about the author, illustrator, and publisher.
It also contains the suggested grade level, the actor reading the story,
and the run time of the video. At the bottom of the story description users
have the options to buy the book and provide Activity Guides.
The Activity Guides provides a
detailed lesson plan for teachers. The Activity
Guide provides a synopsis of the story and theme in the story. It provides step-by-step instruction to do
before viewing, during video, and after viewing the video. Each viewing gives
Common Core Standards, objectives, materials needed, and procedures. The activity guide also contains Reading
Response, Writing, and Across the Curriculum Activities.
Overall, I think Storyline Online is
an engaging website that captivates children by their creatively produced storytelling
videos. Reading aloud to children helps
to improve reading, writing, and communication skills. Storyline Online is another website that
instills and inspires a love of reading in children.
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