Starfall.com is a public free website that has been available since September 2002. The purpose with this website is to be a service to teach children to read and the main approach is phonics, which means that the exercises are focus on the letters sound by showing the pupils the letters in the alphabet and then combine them to different words (Starfall.com, 2010; Cameron, 2001). If the phonic approach is done in isolation, there can be a pitfall, namely, it could be very boring and de-motivating, but Cameron (2001) suggests that phonics should be practise about 5-10 minutes to prevent de-motivating. Another suggestion from Cameron (2001) is that phonics could be integrated in story reading, songs and rhymes, which the website Starfall.com is providing.
Starfall’s target audience is from kindergarten to second grade, but also special or home education. The exercises are very well made and have very good animations and the best of all; they are very simple to use and it is for free, all you need is a computer with Internet!
Starfall.com has four steps; “ABC – let’s get ready to read”, “Learn to read”, “It’s fun to read” and “I’m reading”. I will briefly explain each step and present some examples of uses for teachers and pupils. Have you or will you think of any other good use, please, give me your tip by making a comment on my blog-post. Thanks!
Enter the website here: http://www.starfall.com/
1.ABC-let’s get ready to read: This page is the starting point and it has the whole English alphabet in cute boxes for each letter. You can click on each box and you will enter a page with fun animations about each letter. It is very focus on the sound and some words that begins with the specific letter you practise. Additional, this page has a page with sign language for each letter and a page with the vowels. Finally, a page with an ABC-song and there is a minus for this song, you can not pause the song, and sometime the singer sings the song a little to fast for young learners. On the other hand, it is a great and fun song, but needs practise for non-native speakers.
How can this page be used by teachers and pupils?
ABC-let’s get ready to read: Teachers can use this page, as a starting point or as complement, to let the pupils listen the sounds of the letters. Pupils can use this page, by themselves at school or at home, to listen to the sounds of the letters.
2. Learn to read: This page is the next level and it has several of exercises where the pupils shall create some words with a syllable and add an initial letter. For example the syllable is “at” and there is four initial letters to choose from; h, c, r, b, and the computer says a word, like “hat” and then the pupil are supposed to drag the h-letter to the word and then the computer says the word. A little minus to this exercise is that there are no new words to create with each syllable, but only four. On the other hand, it opens up opportunities for us teachers can create more exercises’ like this. Additional, this page has a little text to each syllable-exercise and the pupils, or the teacher can highlight each word and the computer will read the word, slowly, loud and clear.
How can this page be used by teachers and pupils?
Learn to read: These exercises’ can teachers use in whole class or let the pupils work in pair and help each other. Whole class works best if there is lack of computers, but if you have access to several computers, let the pupils work in pairs and help and discuss with each other. A tip is to have headset for each pupil so they can hear the exercises without disturbing other pupils.
3. It’s fun to read: This is a page that have more text and contains different themes where the pupils are intended to create, read or hear a text within each theme. Sometimes the pupils can hear the text, but sometimes they just can highlight the words and the computer will sound the word. The pupils are active all the time by clicking on different buttons or other suggestions that will create the story.
How can this page be used by teachers and pupils?
The different themes in this page can be used as a preparation for a core activity. For example “All about me” can introduce the pupil to a task about themselves: They can take pictures at their life; their home, their room, their pets etc. and then make a Photostory with the pictures and add some text that is describing the pupil’s life and who s/he is. The teacher can show them the particular theme for all the pupils or, if there are available computers, the pupils can look at the animation by themselves.
4. I’m reading: This page is like the “final level” and it has small books for the pupils to read or listen to. The books are places within different theme, for example Folk tales, Chinese fables and Comics. As a wrote, the pupils can read or hear the text, and the computer voice is a good voice that does not sound unreal, like a speech synthesis which often is pronouncing the word with no intonation.
How can this page be used by teachers and pupils?
This page creates a huge “reading-opportunities/discoveries”. The small cute books can be read by the teacher for the class while it is shown on the Whiteboard/Cleverboard so everyone can see the text and the pictures. That everyone can see the text and the pictures is very good because the pupils will stay concentrated and you can more easily point out words and details in the pictures that will helping the pupils to develop their language learning.
Starfall.com has expanded since they started, now they have a website that is intended for kindergarten and also another site: more.starfall.com which, for example, including math. More.starfall.com is a website that offers plenty of exercises and should work very well in the language classroom where English is the target language. This website considers training; colors, vowels, math, songs and rhymes. This website only provides some few sneak peek on the material, because you need to have an account and for one year a school-account cost about 1.800 SEK.
Other considerations when using this resource
I find that this website suits for grade 1-3 and as teachers we always have to have a purpose with our approaches by looking at the syllabus and the curriculum.
Starfall.com according to the syllabus and curriculum, Lgr11
In the syllabus for English (Lgr11) we can read that “[the pupils] shall be given conditions to use different tools for learning, understanding, creating and communication” (Lgr11, 2010:20). I find that Starfall.com is a great tool, which aims to a few goals. The syllabus also writes that the pupils shall be provided:
- Clearly spoken and written English from different media sources
- Songs, rim, poems and tales
This page has very clearly spoken and written English that is authentic, which Estling Vannestål (2009) highlights the authentic material according to ICT recourses. This page is a different source than the ordinary textbook and it contains songs, rim, poems and tales.
The curriculum writes that the school has the responsibility that, after primary school, every pupil can:
- Use modern technique as a tool for search for knowledge, communication, creation and learning (Lgr11, 2010:10).
This goal is a big goal and contain much more than just using a website, but the using of Starfall’s website aims for this goal.
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