ILA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3

-

 Elvin De Leon

ED638-41

Dr. Rivera

ILA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3


Flocabulary (www.flocabulary.com) is a literacy website that uses hip-hop music to educate students of all grade levels. According to the website, the idea of using hip-hop music for education stemmed from co-founder Blake Harison’s high school experience where he could not memorize new vocabulary words in class but remembered his favorite rap songs. In 2010, the International Reading Association concluded that Flocabulary significantly increases vocabulary proficiency among students. Flocabulary has since been collaborating with artists around the world in video production. 

Flocabulary covers a wide variety of content for each subject. By clicking on Lessons on the navigation tabs at the top of the page, you will find different content to explore. Each lesson from Flocabulary consists of a Music Video, Vocab Cards, Vocab Game, Read & Respond, Quiz, and Lyric Lab to encourage as much as possible with your children or students. Although catchy hip-hop music is at the core of this platform’s teaching philosophy, each tool is crucial in augmenting students’ literacy skills. 

As a teacher of adolescents, I would argue that the music videos may not be as effective for kids of this age group because they tend to have distinct tastes in music and may even find it cringeworthy. However, this does not render the platform useless for adolescents as the vocabulary functions and read & respond still provide an excellent way to engage in literacy learning. The Vocab Cards allow users to draw the word’s meaning and practice using it in a sentence. 

Flocabulary is a fantastic tool that every teacher should have in their inventory. Students react better to lessons that immerse them in the content, and Flocabulary is a fun platform that does exactly that. While the hip-hop music may not be favorable to students of certain age groups, the other tools in the platform still incorporate instruction that works.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Effective Literacy Website #2

-
BUsyTeacher BusyTeacher https://busyteacher.org is another great, great resource site. It has 17,300 free printable worksheets and lesson plans for Language Arts teachers. It’s been said that Busy Teacher is a favorite for many ESL teachers on the go. No matter if you teach kids or adults, beginners or advanced students; BusyTeacher will have what you need. It was so easy to me to go through the website and I know using this resource will save me hours in preparation time. Best of all, no registration required. It has many worksheets and lesson plans for the busy teacher. Because the site is well organized, it is easy to explore all the grammar, vocabulary, speaking, reading, listening, writing and pronunciation worksheets available to print or download. In addition to being able to download materials, users can upload their worksheets to the website and share them with thousands of other English teachers by clicking the “submit a worksheet” link at the bottom of every page. Any b...
Read more

Farewell...for now.

-
Image
     Thank you, Dr. Rivera and to my classmates for making the learning experience in class enjoyable and worthwhile. I appreciate all the information shared online, email, and on text.  This class has made teaching with technology less daunting and challenging as we face a new level of technology-literate learners.  Even old dogs (like myself) are still able to learn new tricks.      Good luck to everyone as we continue to move forward with the Program. We’ve got this!      I know this isn’t necessarily good-bye, just see you later. In the meantime...
Read more

International Literacy Association (ILA) Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3 - ABCYa!

-
Image
  https://www.abcya.com/ ABCYa! is an effective literacy website, where students can practice skills while playing computer games and doing activities. The website is free. However, parents and teachers can sign up for free accounts to monitor the progress of their child or students. Parents can sign up for a 6 month subscription of $44.99 for the Premium Family account, which gives parents complete mobile access, access to link up to 5 devices, ad free experience, ability to save favorite games, set a timer, control game category, and access to worksheets, activity pages and teacher resources. The Premium Teacher account gives teachers the same features, but up to 30 devices can be linked for an annual subscription of $69.99. ABCYa! ranges from Kindergarten to 6th grade. The games were carefully created and approved by certified educators and parents. They are aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. The games are categorized by gra...
Read more