The activities at the various stages are designed to enhance not only students’ word and sound building abilities but also to expose students to high-frequency words suitable for their level. Separating the activities into these stages should allow learners to move from one level of comprehension to the next by means of providing them with comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985). The opening page also has four main colorful and attractive icons representing the stages of reading. Under the attractive logo of the website, there is a sentence summarizing the ultimate goal of the website (“Where children have fun learning to read!”). The opening page of the website is visually attractive to users (see Figure 1). Tasks like these should enhance learners’ confidence, critical thinking, and metacognitive skills (Cummins, Brown, & Sayers, 2007 National Research Council, 2000 Butler-Pascoe & Wiburg, 2003). This would allow students to create, for example, individual portfolios. Moreover, students can choose to save materials on their computers, print them, or email them to share with others inside or outside the classroom.

The website, with its easy navigation tools and visual cues, allows learners to engage in varied activities, games, and materials independently, in pairs, or with the whole class. Its main purpose is to help learners master speech sounds and letters in a meaningful context where students can “negotiate meaning to accomplish a real-world, communicative task” (Butler-Pascoe & Wiburg, 2003, p. Although the website is designed primarily for first grade students, it could be also used with ESL/EFL beginners. It is designed, produced, and published by experts with successful backgrounds and experiences in publishing educational products. Stephen Schutz, Susan Polis Schutz, Jared Schutz Polis, Brandi Chase, and a team of educators, artists, designers, animators, musicians, and engineers from all over the world

Website for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special needs, homeschooled, and English language learners (ELD, ELL, ESL) Ethical Standards for Authors and Reviewersĭecember 2009 – Volume 13, Number 3 Title.

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