ASSIGNMENT 3: Five Reading Readiness / Early Literacy Tools

ASSIGNMENT 3:  Evaluation of Five Reading Readiness/Early Literacy Tools

      Assignment 3 contains the evaluations of five reading readiness/early literacy tools for helping promote reading readiness/early literacy for parents, librarians, educators and anyone interested in helping a child learn how to read.  These tools will be evaluated  based on their appropriateness and ease of use in promoting early literacy and getting a child ready to read.  The five tools selected consists of Every Child Ready To Read @ your library , Reading is Fundamental, Starfall, Get Ready To Read!,  and Baby Karaoke. 

1.  Every Child Ready To Read @ your library
http://ecrr2.wordpress.com/ecc1/

 GENERAL INTRODUCTION:     

        
           Every Child Read to Read (ECRR) is a "parent education initiative" and a joint project of the Public Libraries Association and the Association of Library Service to Children, which are divisions of the American Library Association.  ECRR released a 2nd edition in 2011 with updates incorporating new research and suggestions from users of the 1st edition.  ECRR is highly regarded and the six pre-reading skills are often cited in reading readiness/ early literacy materials.

AGE-APPROPRIATE:

      ECRR provides a parent guide for three age groups, Early Talkers: Birth to Two Years, Talkers: Two and Three Year Olds, and Pre-Readers: Four and Five Year Olds. The first page of the guide defines what early literacy is and gives reasons why parents play an important part in preparing their child to read. Parent and caregivers are a "child's first and best teacher" because they know when their child is most receptive to learning.
       The parent guides encourage parents to teach their child six pre-reading skills that will help them learn to read. The six pre-reading skills are: Print Motivation, Vocabulary, Narrative Skills, Print Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Phonological Awareness. The second page of the guide gives specific strategies and ways to incorporate each of these simple practices.
       Each of the parent guides is tailored to the intended age and some provide examples of specific phrases parents can use to keep their child engaged and talking. The guides also state the importance of reading aloud with their child and making learning fun. The focus of Every Child Read to Read is what parents/ caregivers can do to "develop early literacy skills in children from birth to age five." 

EASE OF USE:

     
     The1st edition of ECRR used to be accessible free of charge from the PLA website, but is no longer available. The website I provided has links to three parent guides from the1st edition that can be printed.
      The 2nd edition ECRR kit is available for purchase from the ALA website and now focuses on five early literacy practices. 

FINAL EVALUATION: 

          

      Every Child Ready To Read @ your library is the "first stop" and  the definitive guide for any librarian looking to give out the most current, relevant and well designed information to any parent, caregiver or person wanting to learn about early literacy and help a child get ready to read. 

2. RIF: Reading Is Fundamental

http://www.rif.org/kids/leadingtoreading/en/leadingtoreading.htm

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

       

     Reading is Fundamental (RIF) is the "largest children's literacy nonprofit in the United States" whose vision is literacy and accessibility to books.  The organization donates books and literacy resources to underserved children from birth to age 8.  RIF wants to "inspire children to become lifelong readers through the power of choice." 

AGE-APPROPRIATE:
     

     The RIF website focuses on two age groups, babies and toddlers ages 0-2 and preschoolers ages 3-5.  A separate section for "grown-ups" includes video, articles, and links to books and activities suitable to use with their child. 

     The Babies and Toddlers section has stories, nursery rhymes, lullabies, and fingerplays read aloud and interactive games.  The Preschool section has read along stories and songs, activities and games, an "Explore" link to videos and facts about different animals and clickable pictures with characters that talk. 

EASE OF USE:

            

    The website is easy to navigate and is intended to make reading a fun experience for children.  RIF includes outstanding videos that model how to do songs and fingerplays.  This link takes you to the videos that can teach anyone how to incorporate them into storytimes and fun at home:

http://www.rif.org/kids/leadingtoreading/en/babies-toddlers/finger-plays.htm

FINAL EVALUATION:

            A big GOLD STAR for Reading Is Fundamental:  Reading Is Fundamental is an excellent source for anyone interested in early literacy and helping a child get ready to read.  The outstanding features of this website is that it offers loads of interactive and engaging online play for babies, toddlers and preschoolers and is filled with stories, nursery rhymes, lullabies, games and finger plays.  The website can be viewed in Spanish language.  Another outstanding feature of this website is that it offers a free RIF's eNewsletter for parents and caregivers to receive new updates when information is added to the website.

3.  Starfall

http://www.starfall.com/

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:   

            Starfall is a free online educational service founded in 2002, which primarily focuses on teaching children to read with phonics. They also claim that the phonic system can be useful for English development programs, such as English as Second Language (ESL).  More recently, they launched Starfall Kindergarten Reading and Starfall Language Arts Curriculum that also provide teachers and parents with valuable teaching tools for reading.

AGE-APPROPRIATE:


     Starfall uses a step-by-step process of reading instruction that follows the natural progression of children at the different stages of learning how to read and then continues on with more advanced curriculum when a child is reading to learn.  Starfall starts at the very beginning with early literacy instruction in their online section, labeled, ABCs, Learning to Read.  This section deals with the youngest learner and introduces the ABCs, the vowel sounds, phonemic awareness and more and models them with interactive, real people singing the alphabet and vowels in little sections.  Each time a sparkly spot on the page lights up, one can click on the letter or section and reveal another section or activity.  The "sparkly" section is seen below over the "Aa" section:

EASE OF USE:

           The website is nicely designed with enough graphics and video to allow children to stay  engaged. In addition, there are a lot of useful user pointers that help children navigate.  As they focus on using phonics to enhance language learning, one can see that the graphics and animation are well-meshed with the playback of the different phonics. For  example, to emphasize the “i” in “it”. They use phrase such as “the big hit” and pictures  of a “tin man” hitting a baseball to make the phonic more impressionable to the children.

          The website also offers a download center where excellent skill sheets can be printed out for tactile use and practice at home :

 http://www.starfall.com/n/N-info/abcprint.htm?n=abc

FINAL EVALUATION:  

         Starfall is an excellent source for early literacy and reading readiness.  All of the school districts in our area and our library's blog have Starfall bookmarked for parents to access the website at home, in order to help their children get ready for Kindergarten.

4.  Get Ready To Read!

http://www.getreadytoread.org/

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

        
     "Get Ready to Read! is designed to support educators, parents, and young children in the development of early literacy skills in the years before kindergarten. Intended for use with all children, the resources and information provided on this site promote skill-building, communication between adults, and ways to address concerns." 

AGE-APPROPRIATE: 

     The title of website states it all, " Get Ready to Read!" and is age appropriate for children birth to 5 years of age.

EASE OF USE:

  

       The Get Ready to Read! website is super easy to use and has large buttons along the right-side which include, Early Literacy Games, Early Literacy Webinars, Literacy Checklists and Tips for Parents.  Along the bottom, it has large, yellow buttons that include Screening Tools, Transitioning to Kindergarten Toolkit, Skill-Building Activities and Early Learning & Childhood Basics. 

FINAL EVALUATION:

     The Get Ready to Read! website has loads of early literacy and reading readiness resources.  One has to really look around to find all the gems this site has to offer.  The top three valuable resources this site contains are:

1. Printable Activity Cards:

http://www.getreadytoread.org/skill-building-activities/activity-cards-individual-child

2.  Links to current Early Literacy and Reading Readiness news

3.  The "Transitioning to Kindergarten: A Toolkit for Early Childhood Educators Index" free download: 

http://www.getreadytoread.org/transition-kindergarten-toolkit/print-the-toolkit

5.  Baby Karaoke

http://raisingchildren.net.au/baby_karaoke/baby_karaoke_landing.html

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

      Baby Karaoke is part of an Australian parenting website with articles and short video clips on parenting babies and young children.  One general topic is Play & Learning which describes what parents can do with their child at different ages and stresses the importance of reading aloud with children to promote language and brain development.  
     My favorite section in this website is the Baby Karaoke feature.  Baby Karaoke is a fun interactive application that can be downloaded to an iPhone or a smart phone.  It has large easy to read text and as the song plays the text lights up for each word being sung which indicates to the very youngest child that text has meaning.  The graphics are very attractive and simple to babies and young children.  

AGE-APPROPRIATE:  

     Baby Karaoke is appropriate for babies and young children, all the way through preschool to learn, practice, and master early literacy songs and rhymes set to music and video. 

EASE OF USE:  

      Baby Karaoke is the easiest application to use and has large colorful buttons that will start and stop and replay a song as much as a little learner wants.  The Baby Karaoke page has a song menu that plays an animated video of the song.  The words of the song are displayed at the bottom of the screen and light up when sung, making it easy for children to follow along.  For example, some of the tried and true age-appropriate songs are ABC, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Old MacDonald, Open Shut Them, Row Row Row Your Boat, and many more.  The songs come with printable song sheets and can be played "karaoke style" with your child as the singer. 

FINAL EVALUATION:

     Baby Karaoke is an amazing resource for parents and is downloadable as a free iPhone app for use on the go.  Having such an easily accessible tool that is fun for children encourages learning and helps parents keep the little ones busy while they're shopping, cleaning, or even cooking in the kitchen.  I highly consider downloading this application and testing on a child of your own, it's sure to be a favorite.