Alexandra Mandapat
ED638 Fall 2019
Dr. M. Rivera
IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #5
For my effective literacy website #5 I've chosen to explore PBS Kids (https://pbskids.org). PBS Kids is a service of kid-friendly tv shows, videos and educational games aired by the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. The curriculum-based entertainment offers online games that match learning content of companion shows. For example, Wild Kratts games address science and animals and Webonauts address media literacy. From cultural understanding to critical thinking the list of activities and content areas are endless. For literacy, the site provides recommended articles and tips for parents and teachers to use.
The site is well laid out, easy to navigate, and offers numerous literacy activities for teachers and students to choose from. While going through the site one of my favorite interactive activities is the Word Girl videos. It is a way to introduce new vocabulary and assess students' ability to use context clues in order to define unknown words. The videos are approximately 26 minutes long with 2 episodes for each video. Before each episode plays, the students are told to listen out for 2 vocabulary words. During the episode, the words are defined and demonstrated. At the end of the episode, I would pause the video to ask the students to generate their own definition of the words. With no cost at all, PBS Kids is an engaging way for students to learn and play at the same time.
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