Starfall is a children’s website
that teaches basic reading and writing skills through a variety of games and
activities. The site’s main audience is preschoolers and kindergarteners but
offers stories and activities for older children up to the third-grade level.
Children are encouraged to play and explore letters and sounds, word
recognition, reading comprehension, and fluency. The stories included on the
site are interactive, making them much more enjoyable for young children. They
can read the stories on their own or click on a letter, word, or sentence to
have it read to them. Starfall’s reading program is broken into four
sections, beginning with ABCs, which provides games and activities for
students learning letter sounds; Learn to Read, which teaches more
common sounds; It’s Fun to Read, which provides stories that children
learn to read in context; and I’m Reading, where students can read short
stories, poems, and more.
Teachers can use Starfall in
the classroom by projecting activities onto a screen for the class to complete
together, have students use the site individually for extra practice, and work one-on-one
with more struggling readers if needed. The site also offers free resources for
parents and teachers, such as printable practice sheets, lesson plans, and
projectable books and posters. Parents and teachers can even download the
Starfall App, which provides many free activities that children can do outside
of the classroom via tablet or mobile phone.
Overall, I found this website very
kid-friendly and fun. The games and activities are colorful, lively, and
well-paced. Students are able to go through the different sections as they
improve their reading skills and become more comfortable with the material.
Teachers and parents can use these with their children at home and on the go, due
to the available apps Starfall has to offer. I would definitely
recommend this website to parents and educators!
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