Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Starfall- Tech Review #4




    I looked at Starfall.com. It would be perfect for Kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, and ESL.   It provides stories, games, videos, and songs on specific skills your student may have trouble with. I took a look at vowel digraph oa as an example.  The student would hear a story called, Soap Boat, play games with vowel digraph and then listen to a song or video about it.   It has plays, fiction/nonfiction stories, comics, folk tales, and Greek myths.
      I think it would be great to use because it reinforces skills and you could individualize for your students. It recently added a Pre-K Curriculum to their program.    The only drawback I saw was it doesn’t offer a wide selection of books.  I can see how kids would get bored after a few months because its limited number of books.  This site would be a great source for beginning kindergarteners to use at home.  We always have kids that don’t know their letters at the beginning of the school year.  Day 4 in the Lucy Calkin’s  Writer’s Workshop Program they are suppose to be stretching words and sounding out words.  The kids that don’t know their letters and many of their sounds are 3-5 months behind the others that do know them.  I definitely will pass this free site on to parents for their child to practice letters and sounds at home.   The printable Drops in a Bucket look like a great resource also.  

2 comments:

  1. I have heard about Starfall as well and used it occasionally. I didn't know they offered books online to read. I think it would be a great site for beginning readers to practice fluency. Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have viewed this site previously and enjoy some of the resources it has to offer. I can use some of the Greek myths in my classroom. My third grade tend to grumble a bit when I ask them to visit the site. They feel it is too young for them, but it is a great source for early elementary students. Thanks for the review!

    ReplyDelete