Starfall - Reading

Starfall.com is a free public service designed to motivate children to read with phonics. It is a very interactive reading site that quickly engages children. I have a little brother with a rather short attention span and this site can keep his attention for longer than 30 minutes and he's having fun. I recommend this site for anyone who knows a child who is starting to learn how to read or is struggling with reading. I would also recommend this site for those who are learning English as a second language, because of the great systematic phonics approach.

The site uses four steps.




1. ABCs - This section walks you through each letter. Showing capital and lowercase letters, words that start with that letter, and other interactive activites. It also includes the sign language alphabet, short vowel songs, and an ABC song that states both letters and sounds.
2. Learn To Read - This section has complete the word activities, sight words, short & long vowel activities, sounds made when combining 2 vowels, chunking, silent e, and interactive stories. The stories are set up to help the children sound out the words as they read. There are 15 lessons included in this section - two activities, a story, and most have a skill as well.
3. It's Fun to Read! - This section contains:

All About Me! - an interactive activity in which the child can become part of the story.

Art Gallery - which uses the art of Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Marc Chagall, Ernie Barnes, and Dorothy Strait to teach compound words, -ight, -ou, opposites, -er, and -ow.

Magic - allows you to change the look of the magician, label his clothing, and perform magic tricks by reading words and following directions.

Music - Uses the music of famous musicians to teach things like sequencing, -ing, -ump, -oy, and other reading skills. There are also juke boxes for a few of the musicians containing some of their other compositions.

Poetry - four poems that give you the option of reading them word by word or having them read to you page by page. A great poetry introduction.

Tongue Twisters - this section includes the tongue twisters Fuzzy Wuzzy, Peter Piper, Seashells, and Woodchuck. How fast can you say them?

Bird Riddles - riddles about birds that give a bird fact.

4. I'm Reading! - This section contains plays, fiction and nonfiction, comics, folk tales, Greek myths, and Chinese Fables. Each of these stories has the option of hearing a word if the reader is unable to sound it out on his/her own or if (s)he wants to verify that (s)he said it correctly.

This is a great site for any child beginning to read and also serves as a great way to introduce children to the arts. I highly recommend it! Let me know what you think! Happy reading!