Literary Games

Match beginning sounds

Paw Park: Sassy Seals: http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark3/pawpark3.html

Paw Park is a game site from GameGoo containing all different types of games and activities to help improve on or practice differnet aspects of literacy. What I like about this particular website is how it is geared directly toward children. There are bright colors, fun animals, animations, voices, etc. The game I am focusing on is called Sassy Seals. When you first click into the game, it starts right away stating a word. There is a dad seal and a son seal it looks like. The dad says a word. Next to them sits a huge teacup with five big fish on top. The whole point of this game is to match BEGINNING sounds of words. After the initial word is stated, the five fish then each state a word. Only one is the correct match, and begins with the same sound as the word the daddy seal gives. It is a little bit of a challenge, because they give some words that are similar, or even rhyme the initial word, but are not the correct answer. However, the dad is wearing a hat that says “Replay” so that the children are allowed to replay over and over the initial word that they must find a match for. Also, simply scrolling over any of the fish causes them to also repeat their words. The site is highly motivating, as it encourages kids to get a certain amount of fish in the cup. Each time they choose an answer, the little seal tosses a worm at the fish they chose. If the answer is incorrect, he says “Try Again” and nothing happens. But if the answer is correct, the blue fish turns a pretty orange and yellow color and drops into the cup. This gives kids a fun and obtainable goal. They are having fun and working on their literacy skills without even knowing it. I love that this really hope the children to focus on only the beginning sound. They improve not only their listening skills, but even their ability to sound out words themselves. They develop phonemic awareness, grasping the ability to sound out each and every part of a word, rather than just trying to memorize what a word looks like or guess how it sounds. When learning a new language or even developing a first language, it is critical to know how each and every letter sounds. This is something I constantly worked on with my tutee.

Evaluated by: Kayla Acosta

Spelling Bee

http://www.quia.com/pop/13123.html

This website in my honest opinion is not very good at all. This is a simple game that does not have much depth to it. A child will sit at his desk and chose between two words to see which one is spelled correctly and if the child gets the answer correct he is only awarded a point. The website has nothing to keep the child’s attention and is very dull. If you really want to take your time to become a better speller there are much better ways, but this way is definitely not the best. If a teacher would like to use this website to his or her advantage they would have to do a lot of setting up and this might not be worth their time. Also I did not see any way of choosing a difficulty level which would seem pretty ridiculous if you are trying to improve your 1^st graders spelling skills. I do not like this website at all and I do not recommended using it.

Evaluated by: Michael Dang

http://www.ictgames.com/dinosaurwordsrepeat.html

This game is great. It helps with pronunciation and reading. You have to match the word you have heard to the corresponding word underneath the egg. I think boys especially would respond positively to this game because the graphics are dinosaurs and eggs. I think this game, however, is very minimalist and only requires two aspects of language learning. This game will be very beneficial to phonology though. It is a great pedagogical tool for listening and reading!

Evaluated by: Kater Hoffner

Spelling City

http://www.spellingcity.com/

Practice spelling the words in your word bank.

The objective of the Spelling City is to improve on spelling skills. I found that the Spelling City website not only improves spelling, but reinforces a student’s understanding of the word as well. The website creates games for the student to play that involve synonyms, antonyms, and sentence creation which help the student with semantics and really grasping the concept. Through word scrambles, word searches, hang man, and other related activities, the students are presented with the word in several ways, letting them explore the proper arrangement of the letters.

This is a valuable resource for students, parents, and teachers because it allows them to input their own spelling words without limiting them to activities the teacher has provided. Students are able to work at their own pace which provides a less threatening environment because students can practice their semantics, sentence structure, and reinforce their spelling in a more autonomous atmosphere—something that is always great for ELLs.

Evaluated by: Karynna Garcia