Products to Fight Summertime Learning Loss, Part Two

In addition to summer book reading, there is also a wealth of online activities that librarians and parents can use to help fight learning loss over the summer months—while also providing great support to classrooms during the school year. Last month (pp. 63-64) we looked at Clever Island, Cosmeo, and Quia Web. Here are three more fun, instructional resources.

Grades K–8 for home or school use.

Cost Access to the Web site, basic games, and worksheets is free; upgrades for additional instructional content range from $9.95 to $89.

The Big Picture Dositey provides K–8 students with instructional reinforcement in math and reading. The free content includes short, interactive lessons, games, worksheets, puzzles, open-ended problems, and other activities. Specific lessons can be created by teachers or parents. The site provides an upgrade that includes mini-courses or practice packs for an additional charge; these focus on specific areas and provide feedback on the student’s progress. Teachers or parents who sign up for the Web site program can provide students with access through their password. Worksheets can also be created to provide students with practice pages for classrooms with limited computer access or for times when students are away from a computer (like on a cross-country trip).

Look & Feel The Dositey Web site provides clear and easy access to specific grade level content through tabs at the top of the page (K–2, 3–4, 5–8). In addition, tabs provide access for All Ages, Teachers, and Parents. Users can select the grade level and the subject and content areas that they want to play. The online games (which require Shockwave) are interactive and provide students with the opportunity to repeat lessons, work at their own pace, and receive positive reinforcement or correction.

While both math and reading reinforcement activities are provided, there appears to be more math content at all levels than reading or language arts. As a bonus, the site provides visitors of “All Ages” with riddles or mind twisters. Students can post their answer to the Web site for review. The solution is announced at the end of the month and winners’ names are published.

How it Works As students move within the Web site, they are able to select different types of games such as matching, step-by-step problem solving, or interactive activities that review simple concepts in the subject areas selected. However, there are often no directions on how to play the games or examples to remind students of the basic concepts or skills needed to complete the exercises.

For Students and Teachers Dositey is not the most sophisticated educational Web site, but for teachers or parents of children in grades K–4, it provides opportunities to practice basic skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division at no charge and with little fuss. The Web site does have a couple of distracting advertisements in the masthead area, and the majority of the ads is directed toward adults.

Report Card Although Dositey bills itself as a free site for those interested in reinforcement activities in math and reading, it seems to be primarily focused on math for grades K–4. However, the content is updated monthly and is easily accessible through a free registration username and password. This site still needs a bit more instructional content and directions. However, for a domain that offers a wide range of math-minded challenges without frustrating installation or set-up guidelines, this site deserves a B.

Grades K–8

Cost This textbook-supported supplemental Web site is available free of charge to teachers, parents, and students.

The Big Picture Education Place is a textbook supplemental resource site that provides users with the ability to select subject-related online materials by first choosing their state and subsequently the subject tools that correlate with the states’ adopted textbook content. Subject content areas include: Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Spelling, and Pre-K, all of which relate to the Houghton Mifflin textbook series for elementary students.

The site provides sections for Educators, Students, and Families with each section providing resources that relate to the needs of the specific user. For example, teachers can quickly access the Educators’ section and find supplemental support materials to provide students with content for reteaching or to use for the introduction of new content materials.

Students can easily locate games, brain teasers, current events, online manipulatives, and test preparation tools. Parents accessing the Families’ section can easily locate homework help, review their child’s unit from the textbook, or locate exercises and projects for subject-area enrichment through the Home Activity Center. There is even a Homeschool Resources component.

Look & Feel Education Place has a clean, simple look that can be easily navigated. Teachers and parents can locate worksheets in PDF format from subject textbook units that can be printed to provide additional exercises. Students will find interactive games such as Crossword Challenge, Spelling Match, Wacky Web Tales, Math Lingo, RoboPacker, and more that will provide hours of entertainment while reinforcing specific subjects.

Additional resources are provided at the bottom of each page which extend the subject content beyond the textbook. Teachers will find Outline Maps, Shape-Book Patterns, Graphic Organizers, and Bilingual Resources. Students will find Wacky Web Tales (for readers in Grade 3 and above); Current Events from Time Magazine for Kids, Weekly Reader, and National Geographic for Kids; and Brain Teasers. Finally, parents can access Homework Help, a Reference Library (which links to free online dictionaries, atlases, encyclopedias, and almanac Web sites), and Bilingual Resources in Spanish.

How It Works Education Place offers a unique extension of the classroom. Through a safe and user-friendly Web site, teachers and parents can assist preschool through sixth-grade students as they review subject areas lessons that are both interactive and fun.

One of the unique features is the availability of various textbooks throughout the grade levels that allow users to move within grade levels as they review. For example, during the summer months parents may choose to reinforce their child’s reading skills by utilizing the resources from the previous year’s textbook. As the child progresses, parents may choose to move forward into the upcoming year’s textbook and challenge students with new work before the school year begins.

Although reading is often the subject area that most teachers, librarians, and parents hope students will continue to pursue during the summer months, Education Place provides many links to programs and sites in math, science, and social studies, all of which will inspire students to investigate topics of interest throughout their vacation. Through creative subject connections parents can encourage students to visit the site as it relates to their out-of-classroom summer experiences. For example, a family vacation may provide the opportunity to print an Outline Map of the United States to allow a third grader to label or identify the states in which they plan to travel.

For Students and Teachers Parents will appreciate the wealth of resource links, lessons, and worksheets. Students will enjoy playing the various games, exploring the research links to subject-area Web sites, and using the test-prep areas. Education Place provides teachers and librarians with accessibility to those often-needed but easily misplaced tools such as graphic organizers, as well as special resources such as monthly themes with Internet-linked materials and even podcasts. In addition, parents will find the resource links to dictionaries, atlases, and encyclopedias a definite plus.

Report Card Education Place may be one of the best kept secrets among classroom teachers. Many educators share this resource with their students and parents throughout the academic year, but the site deserves to be reintroduced at the end of the school year. Education Place deserves a strong A for providing parents with the resources they need to help their children retain their reading, math, and critical-thinking skills during the summer.

Grade K–6

Cost Free with advertising. A license provides an advertiser-free version and printer- friendly pages. For a single classroom membership, a 12-month site license is $25. For a school with up to 50 Internet-connected computers, a site license is $50; more than 50 computers, it’s $75.

The Big Picture Enchanted Learning provides teachers, parents, and students with a wide variety of resources to use in the classroom and at home. With over 20,000 Web pages that provide arts-and-craft activities, mini-books to make and read, foreign language games and puzzles, dinosaur math, and science surprises, Enchanted Learning provides children with hours of learning while actively involving them in projects that inspire creativity.

Among some of the online worksheets, games, and activities are seasonal projects for subjects such as math, science, reading, history, geography, music, and eight foreign languages (Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish). Through the use of a Site Index, teachers and parents can browse the Web site to locate specific resources or use the search box on the home page to locate materials by subject or keywords.

Look & Feel Most educators who visit the Enchanted Learning Web site are sure to notice the overwhelming amount of advertisements and will work around them to access the materials. However, for the small annual subscription price of $25, teachers have access to the entire Enchanted Learning site without the annoying ads and with the option to print the resource pages.

How It Works After subscribing to the full online version, teachers or parents are given a username and password that allow them and their students to access the site. Activities that are often used in the classroom for students in grades K-6 can easily be located and reproduced. Among some of the favorite projects on Enchanted Learning are the One Hundredth Day activities, Back-to-School Activities, Bulletin Board ideas, Physical Science Activities, and Birthday Activities. In addition, the What’s New Each Day area provides project ideas and templates that can be downloaded, printed, or saved.

For Students and Teachers Although excessive printing may be a problem for some users because of the overwhelming number of printable pages, there are many useful resources that make instruction easier. Students will enjoy the variety, including the science and history sections that not only provide activities but also information that can be used for projects or reports.

Report Card Enchanted Learning provides a treasure chest of resource ideas that can be used throughout the year by teachers, parents, and students. With subjects ranging from musical scores and science projects to Japanese language dictionaries and tsunami information activity guides, this Web site offers much more than its subscription price might suggest. As a longtime favorite among many elementary educators, it deserves an A+.