Selecting online games to build literacy skills: Evaluating PBS’ Word Girl, Word World, and Super Why! Games
By: Katie McKay , EC-SEAT Project Scholar In early education, literacy is one of the main goals with significant school instruction time spent on reading skills. Within reading instruction there are five domains: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. All areas work together to create a strong reader according to a study done by the National Reading Panel, which means all of these areas need to be practiced (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborne, 2006). Below you will find an explanation of each area. Using PBS Kids online games to support early literacy Parents and teachers alike who are looking for an easy way to engage their students in learning about reading often look to apps and websites. Not all literacy and reading apps or online games are created equally however. One source that is renowned for quality children's programming and resources is PBS Kids. The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication releas...