Starfall

Shawlon Abuan

ED638 Fall Intersession 2017

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

Starfall (http://more.starfall.com), is a free website filled with colorful and fun tools used to help young children in Pre-K to Kinder learn to read. However, to access all the resources on the site one must purchase through Credit Card, Debit Card, or PayPal. The purchased site is only offered in the United States and Canadian schools/parents. The free site, has a simple design that makes it easy to navigate between the different tools. The website offers a variety of games, downloadable workbooks/sheets, picture cards, and many other resources for parents and educators. Starfall offers 4 levels; 1)ABCs, 2) Learn to Read, 3)It’s Fun to Read, and 4) I’m Reading.

The “ABCs” level introduces all 26 letters and sounds individually. The user has the option to choose any letter, which takes them through the UPPERCASE and lowercase, using the letter in a word, and reinforcing the letter sound. The site gives clear pictures that show objects that associate to the letter sound. It also gives large arrows for the user to follow. One unique feature on this site, it offers introduction of learning how to sign letters in American Sign Language (ASL).

The “Learn to Read” level has 15 games, books, and skills. This level focuses on beginning sounds, ending sounds, sight words, long and short vowels. Each game and book reinforce letter recognition and letter sounds.  After playing the game, the site will give the option of printing the game score. When reading a book, the user is able to click on each word and the site will read the word out loud. At the end of each book, the site will ask for a rating; good, bad, or in the middle. When finished with all 15 games, books, and skills, the site will direct you to the next level.

The “It’s Fun to Read” level, this level offers seven topics where the user views simple 3-5 word sentences to fill in the blank. After completing the sentence, the site will read each sentence aloud. When completed, the user is ready for the final level, “I’m Reading!”. This level has six topics that offer a few books for the child to read; Three Little Plays, Fiction and Nonfiction, Comics, Folk Tales, Greek Myths, and Chinese Fables. Each book contain simple sentences accompanied with the option for the site to read aloud to the child.

            Educators can explore this site when needing a supplemental resource to reinforce letter recognition and letter sounds. The site is easy to navigate and each level offers the option to read the content aloud to the student. By pairing picture and words, students have a better understanding of their alphabets and associating it with pictures, they are familiar with.  This site offers many benefits that are user friendly and accommodating.            

Starfall is a great literacy website because of the fun and interesting content geared toward student engagement. The simplicity of the website is user friendly and is structured to help students progress from one skill to the next. If purchasing the licenses, the site offers much more for educators and parents to help their young children thrive.