Quindew - ILA #6

 

URL: https://quindew.com/

 

            As my blog must come to a short pause, it is only right to go out with a BANG! Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of Quindew. Usually, my reviews are focused on elementary leveled reading and writing programs or websites but this time it is not. Quindew is a reading online program that is geared towards middle school. Their pedagogy enhances a positive literacy culture and ignites the confidence in students’ abilities. Students are able to increase their confidence and skills in both reading and writing, the program is completely differentiated when it comes to instructions and receiving real life data. 

           
Let’s start with the experience. Students and teachers both start off with the same mission of having students become strong and skillful readers. As students’ progress, there are daily challenges that help you earn rewards whenever it is completed. Students begin by receiving daily cherry rewards the help pay for assistance when starting the assignment. Based on their level of reading, students get to engage in their own personal quests. Before reading, students can look through the text and find the definitions for any unknown word that they have. There is also audio support just in case students wants to hear it out loud. As an educator, I can see why this website for middle school is effective. There are
teacher-driven resources that students can follow and have opportunities for daily instruction. It is also very fast way to get results from your students and receive data for overall growth. I hope you give Quindew. 

 

Joanna Ponce's ILA Effective Literacy Website #6 - The Reading Bear

 

The Reading Bear

The sixth effective literacy website that I will be discussing is the Reading Bear (https://www.readingbear.org/) site. This was one of the first few websites that I had listed on our Google Docs, but decided to discuss it towards the end. This website has a lot to offer its users. 

     When you first get into the website, you are greeted with a picture of a reading bear, which is very fitting for the name of the website. Then there are a few tabs to click on that include: home page, log in, about us, getting started, training videos, and log out. The home page also includes a list of ‘First Learn the Letter Sounds’ where if there is a specific letter sound that you are trying to focus on, you can easily access the available materials from there. 

     When you click on the desired letter sound, it will lead to the page where there are a variety of activities and materials to use. First, the options to sound out the letters slowly, then sounding it out quickly, audio flashcards, and progress to audio sentences and silent sentences. This is a great way to have the student(s) become familiar with the letters and the various short or long sounds of letters. There are short videos that help with pronunciation as well as images that correlate with the word(s) being read or shown. 

     There are also training videos that teachers and parents can access in order to be able to use the website more efficiently. The videos include the introduction to the Reading Bear website, how to add sub accounts, and how to review the quiz results. Being able to review the quiz results is very helpful in tracking how the student is progressing. 

     Overall, this is a great website for reading/literacy. It puts a lot of emphasis on going over the basics, down to the letter sounds. There are many videos, audio materials and just useful literacy materials in general.

Joanna Ponce's ILA Effective Literacy Website #5 - PhonicsandStuff

 

PhonicsandStuff

https://phonicsandstuff.com

The fifth effective literacy website that I will be discussing is the website PhonicsandStuff. This website has a variety of useful literacy materials. Upon entering the website you will see the tabs for ‘games, read-alongs, decodable readers, teaching tools, articles, and a link to their TPT Store. When you click on the ‘games’ tab you will see a variety of phonics and reading games. These games include: sound blending, sound letter match, reading words, short vowels, spelling, abc order among others. These games can be a useful tool for students who might need assistance with the very basics of literacy but need a change of activity. This website will provide a good variety that continues the practice of literacy.

There are also decodable readers that can be accessed and used for the student to practice. It also shows which short vowels, consonants, word types, and tricky words. They can also be downloaded and printed which would also be helpful for extra practice when the student does not have access to the website. 

The website also has Read-Along Stories which are great to show your students or just for a student to access. They are able to listen to some books and can read-along. This is a wonderful part of the website that can help greatly with literacy. There are various Tools for Teaching Phonics that can be accessed from this website. These tools help with graphemes, phonemes, building word lists, creating decodable sentences, a phoneme reference guide, among others. Phonics Articles are available for users to access, these articles are useful especially for teachers who are working on the very basics of reading/literacy with their students. 

Overall, the website Phonics + Stuff provides its users a variety of materials that can be very useful for improving literacy for the child/student. There are activities for a student to do when they access the website, as well as materials that a teacher/parents can access to help their child progress and improve their literacy skills.

Laura's Farewell Reflection

 

We're Almost There!!!

I enjoyed learning with and from everyone. Although it felt super fast-paced and very time-consuming, it, we did it!!! Not only did we complete our next step in the program, we created a resource of probably hundreds of websites and tools that we could use in the classroom. The best thing about it is that all the reviews are written by teachers from the same region. It may have taken up a lot of our time, but it was all worth it because it is something that will continue to benefit our students for years to come.

Tammy's Farewell Post

As the great Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run, then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

We have successfully made it to the end of this course. If your journey has been similar to mine, we've faced many challenges. But with each great challenge came even greater successes. I am lucky to have many online resources reviewed and approved by some of Guam's best educators. May we never lose sight of our ultimate goal and purpose: to graduate in December 2024 and provide our students with the necessary tools for success, regardless of their abilities. Have a wonderful rest of your new year, and may you continue to move forward. 

Carl's Farewell Post

Hello everyone!

 It's been an amazing journey thus far and I am so proud of how far we have all have come. It definitely has not been easy, but we have all managed to push through and persevere! After this spring intercession officially marks our half way point in our masters journey! We are almost there!! Very excited to continue to learn and grow further with all of you on this road to masters of education in reading! Stay safe everyone and enjoy this 3 day weekend!

best regards,

Carl 

Leif's Farewell to ED638-40

 

Farewell Message from Leif Andres:

Thank you to my professor and classmates for another fun and insightful course. It’s great that we were able to make it through this intercession course while still being able to enjoy the New Year and holidays. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again in the next course!