Starfall.com is a free website that provides phonemic awareness and phonics practice for pre-readers and beginning readers. It provides a variety of interactive activities, ranging from an alphabet to explore to Greek myths. There are also games that practice building words and jingles to remember tricky rules, like “silent e.” There are also stories and activities that relate to specific times of the year, such as Groundhog Day and Thanksgiving. There are games imbedded in the stories, which users can read by themselves or click on the words to have them read aloud. There are four different stages that a user can go through: “ABCs” which is exploring the alphabet, “Learn to Read” which provides easy phonics readers, “It’s Fun to Read” which is a collection of more advanced stories and “I’m Reading” which is a collection of plays, nonfiction, comics and other more advanced materials.
Starfall.com is easy for students to navigate on their own. When reading a story, a user can click around on the pictures to see special things. Once the story has been read, the next arrow or other appropriate button begins to sparkle. The sparkling buttons help the user navigate through the activity. At the end of each story, the user is asked to give his or her opinion by clicking on a happy face, straight face or sad face. Being able to express an opinion helps to gain user buy-in for the activities.
I personally used Starfall.com with classes of kindergartens and first graders for four years. This reflects the usage of about 80 children. I found that each student was able to find something interesting or challenging. There were favorites, such as picking peppers for Peter Piper and the About Me book that children returned to time and again. Once the children navigated to starfall.com, they needed little to no help in navigated the site itself. When allowed to choose their own activities, most chose activities that would be appropriate for their reading abilities. Given my experiences with Starfall.com, I would recommend it for use by children from 4-8 or children who needed to improve the reading skills presented on the site.
Starfall.com was recognized by Homeschool.com as one of their five top educational websites in 2008.
www.starfall.com
