Instructify

Looking for a fun tool to use in your elementary reading instruction? Your students will enjoy learning the fundamentals of reading with Starfall.

Starfall is a free interactive reading phonics based web site. It targets grades Pre-K through second grade. On the site you can start at the very beginning with the alphabet and move onto word families and non-fiction reading with biographies. Starfall has games to provide meaningful practice with fundamental reading strategies. The site features activities appropriate for everyone from beginning readers to fluent readers.

In the Alphabet Section students click on the different letters of he alphabet to hear the sound the letter makes and are shown pictures that begin with that sound. The site then provides sorting and matching games to provide practice with the letters. When your students are ready to move on they can visit the Learn to Read section where they can read stories that are broken up into the different word families. In this section the site offers little rhythms students can listen to in order to learn vowel rules such as long vowels and r-controlled vowels. Students can have the site actually sound and blend words of a story as they read along.

As your students develop as readers they can visit the It’s Fun to Read and I’m Reading section for different types of genres of stories such as poems, biographies, tongue twisters, plays, nonfiction, fiction, folk tales, comics, Greek Myths, and Chinese Fables. In addition, your students can participate in interactive activities that correlate with the different holidays we observe throughout the year. In addition to using this site in your classroom, this is a great resource for parents and students to use at home, especially for your students with limited English proficiency. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

Starfall