Website: http://www.starfall.com/
Interest Level: Ages 5 & under
Subjects/Themes: Phonics Learning Website, Digital Stories, ABCs, Counting, Letter Sounds, Games
About the Website: Starfall is a free website that focuses on teaching children to read using a systematic phonics approach. Both educational and entertaining, the website stresses phonemic awareness when beginning to teach children to read. The website uses a mixture of audio and video to teach children the phonemic sounds of letters and words. The website is divided into four levels of reading from easiest to mor difficult: 1) ABCs 2) Learn to Read 3) It’s Fun to Read and 4) I’m Reading. The lessons in the different reading levels are comprised of a mix of animation and real photos. Short games are sometimes included with a lesson. The words or sentences in each lesson are written on the bottom of the page and are highlighted in sync with the sounds.
Personal Thoughts: I highly suggest this website as a useful tool to help emergent readers develop necessary reading skills. There is no outside advertisments on the website. The website does offer low cost books and phonics journals with activities similar to those found on the website. The website while easy to use, may still require an adult's supervision to help a child navigate the site the first few times until they are comfortable going from lesson to lesson. Some great features on the site include a lesson on sign language, the highlighting of words as they're being read aloud, and vocabulary lists.
Additional Notes: The website was founded in 2002 by the the Polis-Schutz family who created Blue Mountain Arts publishing company and the e-card company Bluemountain.com.
Awards & Recognition:
Listed as one of The Reading Teacher's "Five Internet sites too good to miss" (May 2006).
Listed as one of Homeschool.com's "Top Five Educational Websites" (2005 & 2008).
Highest rated product in Children's Software & New Media Review's Early Elementary category (Spring 2004).
WELCOME
Hi Everyone and welcome to my blog. This site is being constructed as a project requirement for my Master's Program in Library Science from SJSU.
By the end of this Fall10 Semester I should have everything ready to go!
By the end of this Fall10 Semester I should have everything ready to go!
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