One way of making reading fun is to play games that the students would enjoy while getting them to read the words. KABOOSE is just one of the many online sites which offer free online games which can greatly build students vocabulary knowledge and reading ability. This site provides an online teachers’ forum, activities that both parents and teachers can do with their kids. It also provides word puzzles, printable worksheets and lots more. Although the site provides “non reading” games as well, at least the student must read the instructions in order to play the game. I believe that this is a good resource for teachers especially at the Primary level, so why not check it out. The link for this site is:
http://resources.kaboose.com/games/read2.html.
Another interesting site for Primary level students is http://www.starfall.com/.
This site has different reading levels and is very interactive and reader friendly. The site purports to adopt a systematic phonics approach, inclusive of phonemic awareness and thus states that its programme is beneficial to those ranging from preschool to second grade, as well as those in special education, home school and English Language development.
The final site I will talk about is http://www.magickeys.com/books/. This site has online stories for children of all ages. I read one about “The Journey of the Noble Gnarble” and it was quite interesting. Important themes such as “focussing on a task” and “determination” were quite evident in this story. Teachers though should check out the stories beforehand since the background on which some are written can be problematic to read.
I have added these sites under "My Hyperlinks" on this page. Check them out.
Hi Avril,
ReplyDeleteI have been using Kaboose since I first received internet service many years ago. At that time my daughter was young and I was looking for interactive sites for her to practice phonics and play games. Today, I still use the site to find worksheets for my students. It is a site I would recommend to primary school teachers.
I discovered the Starfall site a few years ago. I think it is really fantastic. During the vacation I have been using the site with my five and a half year old nephew. He had been having difficulties differentiating the vowel sounds. The audio, including songs, as well as the repeated practice provided has helped him to learn all his short vowel sounds. He enjoys visiting the site whenever he visits me and presently, he is reading the phonic stories and learning the sight words. For any teacher or parent who has a child now learning to read I think this is a sure bet in terms of phonics instruction.
I checked out the magickeys site. I read "The Babita Bird". I liked the story, especially as it was narrated, unlike “The Journey of the Noble Gnarble”. The science lesson that followed was probably suited to a higher class but again it had audio so it could be used for oral comprehension. I will probably visit the site again in the future.