Welcome to an overview of current Digital Reading Choices.
Please click on the colored text to watch each video. There are a total of 8.
Myon UPDATE: Since I recorded the Big 3 Overview lecture, I figured out how to banish the trash quizzes from Myon-- and no more placement test either!
PK LifeScience
PebbleGo
Brainpop and Brainpop JR (see video below)
The following websites are external to Victor. The teacher will need to do setup and students will need to be guided into adding them to Classlink.
Basic RAZ UPDATE: RAZ has been opened! Free access to their content!
Epic UPDATE: Epic has been opened! It's school day limitations have been lifted.
Tumblebooks <---This is a link just for our district, just for this season.
NewsELA
Click here for Brainpop, Tumblebooks, and NewsELA video.
In order to receive credit, you will need to post a comment below WITH YOUR NAME IN A BYLINE by Friday April 3rd explaining which resource you will likely be using next with students and why. If you already use any of these resources and have tip you'd like to share, let's pool our knowledge!
This was great practical tutorial information! I am excited to use RAZ with my kindergarteners to give them a chance to read some leveled text while home. I also see some great possibilities for BrainPop Jr. I have been sending daily video messages with some activities-and have not explored the site much beyond videos, but see some valuable resources that I can link students to exploring and utilizing that will tie directly to some of the content in my daily messages. Thanks again----Amy Scata
ReplyDeleteGlad you have a plan, Amy. You're marked complete!
DeleteMichelle Procious
ReplyDeleteI am going to suggest RAZ books to a few of my students while we are out of school. I did like the Epic books too and will look into that when we get back to school.
My curiosity with regard to helping students with expository texts drew me to this offering, specifically for math-related content area reading. I know RAZ Kids has been utilized by my co-teacher and special education provider, but I was not entirely sure what it offered. Newsela is something my own kids have been assigned, but I only received their feedback on it. From what I have seen from your offering and my own exploration, I can see it as a resource to help engage students with current events, similar to what Time for Kids offers.
ReplyDelete^^^ Dan Stone
DeleteSarah Kachmaryk:
ReplyDeleteI had honestly not gone into all of these sites/resources before and despite some of the negative aspects of them, I do think that they could be very helpful as a parent during this time of learning from home. I think it gives parents relatively easy access to help select books of interest at different levels and topics. Overall, a great resource that is free for our students and can be accessed pretty easily. I particularly liked the options that Brain Pop, Jr. had for aspects of speech and language. They had several options for grammar and comprehension which are ones I plan to explore further for use with my students.
Thanks for this Sarah: if you've never seen ell.brainpop.com we have a subscription to that too, and I wonder if the incredibly simple conversation-based videos there wouldn't be a help to your work.
DeleteThank you for highlighting these resources. We have similar resources available for students on our VIS Library page. These are wonderful resources to share with students as we navigate Distance Learning opportunities.
ReplyDeleteLiz McLean
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz.
DeleteHi Michele! So much great information. I am going to get my students going on EPIC. I like that it offers so many trade books. Also, plan to make baskets of books that can be accessed by my whole class. We can have a discussion during our weekly zoom or a google doc with a question we can all respond to and discuss. Gina Lahue
ReplyDeleteThanks Gina!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the wonderful insight for all of these products. The great news is there are quite a few choices to utilize while homeschooling for free. My older kids loved Raz-Kids when they were younger so I think that I will use that resource while we are home for all of them. I do like how you can pick from a wide variety of appropriate leveled books.
ReplyDeleteWe are also using Newsela. You can choose the appropriate reading level when you input your child into your "class". I wish it was a little more user friendly.
Jenn Parks
DeleteI have set my class up on Raz Kids as another option, especially for independent reading if they run out of physical books that we sent home or that they have at home. I like this as well, because I can log in and see who is using it and if they are how they are doing with books at their independent level. I have been redirected families here as well if they inquire about what else they could do. This week in my newsletter, I plan to remind families about MyOn on their classlink page for more options. My next steps will be to have a look at Epic and share this out with families as well as another great resource! Thanks Michele!
ReplyDeleteMolly Glanville
DeleteThanks Molly!
ReplyDeleteHi Michele, Thank you for doing this. These Loom screencast videos are very helpful and easy to follow along. I'm mostly familiar with RAZ, Epic, Brainpop, and NewsELA. I'm not very familiar with MyOn, but I know a lot of people love it! I wasn't familiar with Tumblebooks so I want to explore around on there. I think we have so many great options for our students to continue reading at home. Thanks for all your work to support teachers and families! ~Lauren Forget
ReplyDeleteHi Michele,
ReplyDeleteThank you for a thorough overview of these various online reading options. I currently have my kindergartners set up with RAZ accounts. I have used Brainpop JR a few times in my classroom this year to supplement science units but I plan to use this further with families over the next few weeks. Also, I am going to explore Pebble Go further and then have my students use this resource. This will help provide families with another non-fiction reading source at home. Thank you so much. -Jen
Thank you so much for doing these online classes they are so informative. I just started to explore Raz Kids as I start to help guide my own Kindergarten student at home. I like how they have leveled reading books for the students. Many of the books at home are advanced books that are more for parents to read aloud before bed verse books that help guide his reading abilities. I also never knew about Brain Pop and as you scrolled through it I saw Mindfulness and Moods and that can be helpful for our students with controlling emotions, and taking deep breathes in difficult situations which is very important these days. Blake Smith
ReplyDeleteThank you Michele for such a comprehensive overview of online digital resources available to us. RAZ-Kids seems great for students who need a printed book that they can read over and over again. The ability to review their quizzes to gather more information about their comprehension skill challenges and areas to target for teaching points seem great. Each year, parents do e-mail with requests for their children's acceleration in reading. Besides supplementing achievement testing, this information could give parents more data regarding their child's "giftedness." How fantastic that info from RAZ-Kids was helpful in learning that some non-verbal studetns were readers!!!!
ReplyDeleteBased on your feedback, EPIC seems like a fantastic resource for books and learning videos for students to explore their interests. Teachers can create collections of book/book baskets specially for students. It looks like it has Spanish versions available too for our students.
MyOn also seems like a great online literacy program to ensure students can keep reading and learning at home. Students can also get assigned books by level and you mentioned the voice work is superb!!
PK LifeScience seems like a great resource that I would encourage students to use to access the Scientist Biographies and Brain Teasers. The Bug list was so extensive and videos look top notch. I liked the Pop Up vocabulary support but am not a fan of robotic text-to-speech voice.
PebbleGo is an awesome research tool for informational articles and activities. The Animal and Science Modules look informative. I liked the "question of the day" and "opinion poll." We know how much students like to share their opinions! :)
I love the breadth of topics covered in BrainPop. Based on your scroll review of some of the content, I learned about the English section with a vast array of content (e.g. grammar, writing, thinking, dialogue, imagination, parts of speech, personal pronouns, similes and methaphors, etc.) I love the animated movies, jokes, and humor. Great resource for minilessons.
TumbleBooks is another great resource to explore. I saw you scroll through a row of books titled: "Kings and Queens of Self-Esteem" that I would like to explore. As you mentioned, I like the fact that there is an adult-smooth professional reader. The site also has National Geographic videos and playlists. The books also come in Spanish (and French) for our students!
Thank you Michele for being such a brilliant, informative, and supportive resource!
You're very welcome, Tania!
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