Llengua anglesa a primària. Competència digital

Children love books and especially e-books. They help them discover the joy and power of reading because, among other things, they are beautifully illustrated, Flash animated and words highlight as they are spoken or sung to make it easier for kids to follow along. That means that they are fun-to-read stories and provide an opportunity for children to discover how much fun reading can be.

In this practise we are having a deep look at MightyBook. This site was created to promote “Literacy, Creativity and the Power of Reading”. It helps kids learn to read and speak the English language because children see and hear the words in the stories and songs. That makes MightyBook a good learning resource for English as a Second Language . MightyBook is a magical place where books come to life with animated pictures and stories that are read out loud. There are even animated story songs.

• Enter the MightyBook page

and go to the right part of the screen to get to samples, (http://www.mightybook.com/MightyBook_free/free_index.html). Click on it.

• Access the Free stories and songs section, (http://www.mightybook.com/MightyBook_free/Free_Stories_and_Songs.html)

• Select the first story: Bobo, the baby elephant grows up, (http://www.mightybook.com/MightyBook_free/books/bobo_elephant/bobo.html).

• Click on it. You can hear it read aloud.

• While listening, you can go back to the previous page, stop the reading or go to the next page.

• At the end of the story you can click on replay to listen to it again or click on read it yourself. By doing this the student can read alone and listen to the pronunciation of some highlighted words.

• Methodology: this activity can be put into practice in cicle superior because of the language used in the story. Previously it is advisable to introduce the new vocabulary to your students -or review it-.

According to the level of your students and in order to check the students understanding, you can use the worksheet provided to:

• introduce the story and guess what is going to happen (by using the pictures)
• check predictions while listening and put the pictures in the right order
• match the pictures with the sentences after listening to the story (on their own) to review the story

The activity may be done in the computer room. Each student should use headphones not to disturb the rest of the class.

• Timing: an hour class or two depending on the activities you decide to carry out.
• Resources: computer with internet connection and headphones to allow each student to listen to the story in their own rate of work.
• Complementary material: sequencing activity worksheet to check comprehension (pictures and words, although they need to be cut out). If you think that the sentences are too long or difficult for your students, you can reduce them to make them easier for kids to follow along.
• Assessment: you can either use the direct observation to assess the activity or to prepare a true-false questionnaire / fill in the gaps activity.

A very interesting site with catchy stories is Reading Planet (http://www.rif.org/readingplanet/content/read_aloud_stories.mspx), website with animated stories and songs. Enter the story Pink and purple pumpkins.

KIDSREADS (http://aol.kidsreads.com) is a web for kids of cicle superior to find information about their favorite books and authors. You’ll find interviews with authors, trivia games, word scrambles and contests related to some books.

MISTERYNET’S (http://kids.mysterynet.com/) This site contains mysteries to solve, scary stories, magic tricks and contests for children to promote reading. It is useful for cicle superior.