IRA Newsletter Project Effective Literacy Website Review #3: Lalilo

 

Lalilo is a web-based learning platform developed specifically for kindergarten through second grade. It was developed by teachers that teach kindergarten through second grade. This is an important feature because it gives the site credibility. Lalilo is a self-paced site that offers differentiated reading and phonics instruction though interactive lessons, activities, and games. Some of the skills addressed on this site are letter identification, letter-sound correspondence, blending and segmenting, fluency and automaticity, as well as comprehension. Some of the guided lessons focus on consonants and short vowels, blends, digraphs, long vowel patterns, sight words, and word families. They provided access to independent reading books from Level A-M as well as listening comprehension books. Lalilo was developed around the Common Core Standards and is structured following the CCSS scope and structure.

Each student experience begins with a placement test to determine the initial starting point and areas that need intervention. I love sites that include placement tests they are a great resource, and you can trust the fidelity because it was made by teachers for teachers. Placement tests are available to the teacher for review on the teacher dashboard. This is a unique feature. Typically, student progress through the actual program is the only thing reported or stored for review.

This program keeps students engaged by cycling through different skills so that students do not get bored. As they complete their assignments or level, they move through a jungle collecting badges and stars that unlock stories about animals. Lalilo adapts to their student’s performance to provide content at their functioning level of difficulty. The lessons are scaffolded to provided rigor to encourage students to expand their thinking process. Immediate feedback is provided throughout the entirety of the lesson.  Students can use Lalilo at home with an access code provided by the teacher. Lalilo also connects parents and provides them access to student progress as well.

Lalilo offers two variations of their site. The free basic plan and the paid “premium” plan that is intended for purchase by districts or school administration. Students can access all the program has to offer however teachers can only review reports for phonics and spelling use the “free/ basic” access. The premium plan option provides access to more student data, undescriptive “features”, and implementation support according to the website description.

This site has helped my third-grade students become more confident readers and spellers. Lalilo is easy to navigate and very kid friendly. It does not require complicated passwords or senseless clicking to get started. The instructions are read out loud to the students with the option to reread them on their own. They love the talk to me feature. Students are given a sentence and told to read it back to the computer. It records them and plays it back to them. They think this feature is so cool and think that it gives them more awareness of their strengths and weaknesses. It’s a win-win situation!