Starfall

The online books that my students love most are, of course, those that are interactive.

Starfall is one of their favourites. Even the students who are a little older, but need extra practise, don't mind working on activities on the site because it's colourful and has funny little activities along the way.

All About Me is one of their favourites on the site. You get to create a character, then read sentences about that character and a little sing along song!

Perfect for K-2 students, but also useful for ESL students when learning about the names of items around the house, school or the parts of their bodies.

I have one student who has a lot of letter/sound problems and finds it difficult to blend. He is in Grade 5, but we've used the letter blocks and ONLY the first page of the booklet to click on the letter so he can hear the sound. We then use the Learning to Read activities to look closely at letter/sounds and even use things like the pictures of where your lips and tounge are to help make the sounds. He will click the letter himself, listen and then repeat. After a while he makes the sound at the same time and knows he's doing well when he can't tell the difference.

When I had a younger class I used the site as part of our guided reading lessons. It replaced the listening post, and the kids knew which book they'd read and which was next and during the course of the year they worked through the different levels. Their Scope & Sequence is useful and I used it in my programming.

The site has a lot of useful downloads including picture/word sheets that can be used for pre/post reading activities.