Sitting down and hitting the books isn't for everyone when it comes to learning. Of course people have different learning styles and perhaps yourself or your child might want an alternative to books and handouts when it comes to learning. It can also be difficult to find online literacy games for middle schoolers that aren't childish in their look and approach. For this reason I have looked into what is available in terms of online literacy games for middle school students. Here are 6 resources to get you started. 1/ Mr Nussbaum MrNussbaum.com offers many online reading and literacy games. One of our favourites is Sound Garden. It appears simple at first but quickly turns into a challenge due to the time pressure. Link - https://www.mrnussbaum.com/sound-garden/ 2/ Vocabulary.co.il Vocabulary.co.il has a wide range of free online vocabulary games available and are definitely worth checking out. The one that has me hooked at the moment is High School Compound Word Match II. It is more of a memory test than anything but it will help your middle schooler learn some more advanced words. Link - http://www.vocabulary.co.il/english-language-games/high-school-compound-word-match-ii/ 3/ BBC Bite Size BBC's bite size has always been a great site for online resources to help kids and young adults learn. They have a KS3 sectrion (key stage 3) which is equivalent of age 11 to 14. There is a mix of games and guides on here so have a dig to see what is on there to suit you or your child. A useful resource not just for literacy type subjects also. Link - https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/levels/z4kw2hv 4/ Home Spelling Words
Home spelling words.com have a number of games you can access to help with spelling and memory. These vary from basic fill in the blank type games to flash games. For a list check the link below. Link - https://www.homespellingwords.com/8th-grade 5/ FunBrain.com Funbrain.com has fun games up to 8th grade level although older children may find the spelling games aren't particularly challenging, and are best used by a struggling reader of middle school level. Link - https://www.funbrain.com/grade/8 6/ PhonicsPlay For a quick and easy to pickup and play flash game try PlanetaryPlurals from phonicsplay. Although the interface makes you think this is aimed at younger children, guessing the plurals of some words may have you stumped due to the varying difficulty of the games. Link - https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/PlanetaryPlurals.html Hopefully some of you find these resources useful. Keep checking my blog and I will update it with any further resources I find available. For more fun games try here - https://pbskids.org/games/spelling/ Tried any of these sites? I'd love to hear your comments below! JM
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It can sometimes be difficult to think of new and interesting ways to encourage early literacy at home. Chances are though you are probably already doing a lot of the techniques we are talking about here already. Here we will look at 14 ways in which you can encourage early literacy at home... 1/ Read Aloud - As soon as your child is born. This helps them recognise your voice and different tones. 2/ Books - Start with the basic wooden back books and progress to more complex picture books with rhyming language. 3/ Stories - Share stores at meal times. For example what everyone has done during the day. 4/ Slide Shows - Turn your children’s own words into a computer slide show or animations (via an app). They will be amazed to see their words turned into stories. 5/ Chit Chat -Talk to them about their daily experiences. This helps develop not only verbal but literacy skills. 6/ Integration - Integrate words into day to day play. For example menus in a pretend cafe or food stall. 7/ Involvement - Involve your children in day to day activities. For example making shopping lists together. Explain what you are doing and why in language they will understand. 8/ Rhyming - Play rhyming games, to help build phonemic awareness, and also to have fun! 9/ Following - Run your finger under each word. Your child may not notice this at first, but soon they will develop the concept of words and spacing between words. 10/ Expansion - Expand Your Child’s Vocabulary through story times, Discuss words with your child that they might not know. Did you know that children who join kindergarten with a strong vocabulary are typically able to learn 8 new words per day, while children who struggle with vocabulary learn only 2 words per day 11/ Inflections - Read with voice inflections. For example using a rising and falling tone when speaking. It helps children hear how reading should sound. and second, using voice inflections as you read holds their attention and gets them excited about reading. 12/ Predictions - Ask you child what they will think will happen in a book from looking at the cover. This will help the child focus on the story and how it will compare to their own expectations. 13/ Repetitions - Reading the same book over and over might sound repetitive but repetition is the key to learning. This will help the child gain familiarity with the story and then become familiar with turning pages, when the story ends, and also recognise any mistakes you make when reading. 14/ Teach Letter Sounds - Studies have shown that children learn best when they are taught the letter names and letter sounds at the same time. In one study, 58 preschool children were randomly assigned to receive instructions in letter names and sounds, letter sound only, or numbers (control group). The results of this study were shown to be consistent with past research results in that it found children receiving letter name and sound instruction were the most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds. I hope this list was useful, please check out our blog for further articles. For further tips check out this article - www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/reading-resources/developing-reading-skills/reading-tips-parents.html Thanks JM Well it's 2019 already and what does this mean for our blog?
I have relaunched the blog after some issues I had previously. I still intend to post similar content aimed at supporting those struggling in education. My main focus towards the end of last year was getting up to date research and then selecting the most suitable to post here on the blog, in an easily digestible format. It seems that our readers like lists in particular, and are also partial to a video or two! With this in mind this will be the style that we will run with for the blog going forward. Keep watching this space and thanks for the support! JM |
AuthorHey! I'm JM, long time blogger and avid learner, thanks for checking out my blog on reading resources! ArchivesCategories |