Literacy Website : Storybird

Storybird (www.storybird.com) is a unique language arts tool that has been used by over 400,000 K-12 classrooms worldwide and is completely free to all educators. Students act as poets and narrators, pairing their words with site-curated, licensed art.

Why choose Storybird? As educators I am sure that we have had students who struggle daily with the writing process. One of the best ways to build a student’s written competencies is to offer them multiple opportunities to practice. Storybird is an excellent medium to encourage students to write frequently and to practice their writing skills. This tool is valuable to all students but particularly for those with strong visual skills because it provides such a rich variety of images for students to find inspiration in their writing. As students explore all the images the site has available, they can begin to brainstorm and map out stories they may want to tell. The images enrich the student's stories and often entice them to write more.

Storybird is not merely a tool for creating quality written work; it is a supportive learning community. Although teachers have the ability to keep their classes completely private, there are options available to share, publish and even print student work for fundraisers. Through peer to peer collaboration, constructive community feedback, and the sharing of best practices, students are not just improving their literacy skills, but are actively participating in helping others develop their skills as well.

Storybird is an excellent literacy website. It inspires writers from all over the world to come together and collaborate with an easy to use online tool for sparking creativity, encouraging storytelling, and crafting professional looking storybooks. With the option of buying hard copies of the students' books and poems, it would be marvelous to see student made work in our school libraries and in our homes.