I’ve seen studies that indicate that the great differentiator for academic success is the summer! The kids who just veg out all summer will start the next school year at an academic level a month behind where they finished the previous year. Through enrichment and summer study, a student can start the next school year ahead of where they finished the previous spring. Which are you?
- Time4Learning is an online interactive curriculum covering pre-k through eighth grade. It includes both language arts and math, as well as science and social studies as a bonus. Algebra can be added at no extra charge. Some students use it as a review for topics that were challenging during the school year ; others use it to get a jump-start on the upcoming year.
- Time4Writing.com. In eight weeks or less, your student will follow our tutorials and work with our experienced licensed online tutors to build their writing skills. There are courses are available from second to 12th grade which range from basic to advanced.
- VocabSpellingCity.com. Get a jump on next year’s word lists with fun games like HangMouse, Speedy Speller and Word-O-Rama. Find out what curriculum and word list your school uses for the next grade — someone has probably already posted it on VocabSpellingCity.com. Use the search on SpellingCity to find it and then import it into your account. A Premium Membership allows you and your student to get all the best games as well as track and see progress.
VocabularySpellingCity has just added a digital and printable flashcards.
The flashcards are customizable:
- choose what information you want to see about each word: definition, sentence, part of speech, synonym, antonym (any or all of the above)
- choose how you want the information displayed: see the word first, see the information first, order the words alphabetically or randomly or as entered on the list
The flashcards are interactive:
- click the card to see it flip over
- click the sentence to hear the word spelled out and the sentence spoken
The flashcards are printable!:
- select the printer button and choose from 5 possible sizes to print your Flashcards
If you don’t know about VocabSpellingCity.com, you should it. It’s a fabulous resource for both learning English and building advanced English skills. They have a vocabulary of over 40,000 words that are spoken aloud by a native English speaker. Below are some other key resources from VocabularySpellingCity.
Developing vocabulary is essential in helping people better understand their language. Idioms and slang are such a big part of American culture that it’s essential that Americans as well as people of all ages learning English as a Second Language (ESL) should study idiomatic expressions and slang. These expressions can be understood easily on a literal level, but they should not be taken literally. Here’s an example:
George has his hands full.
While George could literally have his hands full of objects, that’s not the meaning of this idiom. Instead, it means to be very busy. What if someone kicks the bucket? Unless one has learned that this means to die, the idiom will be indecipherable. Here is a short list of some other idioms in American English:
Let’s play it by ear. (Let’s decide as we go along.)
You’re pulling my leg. (You’re teasing me.)
I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. (I heard it from a reliable source.)
There’s something fishy going on. (There’s something strange going on.)
I’ve got a frog in my throat. (I’m having a hard time talking.)
If you’ve been speaking English for a long time, you may not even think of an idiomatic expression as an idiom anymore. But children and ESL students can get tripped up by these expressions if they’re not taught the meanings. Get some practice with idioms with our vocabulary games.
If you have homeschooled your child, thought of homeschooling, or even spent a short amount of time on forums or sites about homeschooling, you may have been baffled by the terminology common to home educators. The homeschooling movement has become so prevalent – - especially in online communities – - that a whole new set of vocabulary has emerged.
For instance, you might be surprised to find that an Umbrella School has nothing whatsoever to do with the weather. This is actually a school that enrolls homeschooling children or families and offers services
supportive of home education. It is also referred to as a “Cover School.”
And when homeschoolers refer to the “S” Word, they aren’t protecting innocent eyes, but rather facetiously referencing the oft-mentioned question of “socialization” that is brought up in association with the idea of home education.
Eclectic homeschooling is a little easier to cypher. This term describes a homeschooling approach that mixes and matches different teaching styles and curricula to create the best learning environment for each child.
And although many have heard the term unschooling, they usually mistake it to mean the lack of any educational training. In reality, homeschoolers use the term to refer to an approach to education where each child takes the lead in guiding his or her own learning.
If you are curious about these and other terms common to homeschoolers, you might find it interesting to explore the full Homeschooling Glossary at the Time4Learning website.
In our local area, schools are completely shut down today thanks to an unusually powerful and pervasive snowstorm that doesn’t often hit those of us living in the Southeastern States. Knowing how slowly our local department of transportation is able to clear the roads after a storm like this one, I predict that schools will be closed most of the week.
I wonder how many teachers plan ahead for “snow days?” I’ve read about teachers who hand out a snow packet at the beginning of the winter months, and ask their students to complete certain amounts of the packet for each day that school is cancelled for inclement weather. I’m also aware of teachers that put additional “snow day” assignments up on their classroom web pages, or on an online classroom bulletin board.
One thing teachers could do to keep learning happening during these unavoidable absences is to email/hand out a list of appropriate educational websites to parents, and suggest that parents allow students a specific amount of time to build skills on them during a snow day. Here are some sites I would suggest make it to the provided list:
Vocabulary Fun – build grade-level vocabulary with fun and interactive word games
Vocabulary and Spelling City – free vocabulary and spelling games that allow users to input their own lists or use one of the thousands of lists already added
Learning Games for Kids – educational games that build skills in math, language arts, science, social studies and more
There are many, many other sites, too – - including some your school may already subscribe to – - that could be added as suggestions for educational practice and learning fun when school is cancelled. What are some that you might suggest?
We are excited to announce an exciting update to our sister-site: SpellingCity.com. Although it will be keeping the same URL, Spelling City has expanded to become Vocabulary and Spelling City!!
Vocabulary and SpellingCity not only features sentences for each of their 42,000+ words, they also now feature vocabulary content, including definitions, parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms! They have introduced four new Premium Activities using this content: Vocabulary Test and MatchIt Definitions, both of which feature definitions; Parts of Speech, which guides students to select the correct part of speech of a given word as used in a sentence; and Word-O-Rama, an exciting word game show that features fill-in-the-blank sentences, definitions, synonyms and antonyms! Learning vocabulary has never been so much fun!
For more info on what’s new at Vocabulary and Spelling City, check out this video:
The second semester of each school year often brings together students nationwide in a common foreboding: the knowledge that standardized tests will soon be upon them. For elementary and middle school students, this usually means some type of basic reading and math assessment, and possibly science and social studies assessments, as well. For high school students, this can include a high school graduation exam or for those hoping to further their education, the SAT test.
Vocabulary.co.il has some terrific games that will help students prepare for these tests the fun way! Match It is a test-prep styled game that has you match vocabulary words with the sentence that best fits with the word. This is the type of vocabulary challenge that almost every student confronts on standardized tests. In most state and nationally normed tests, students are asked to match a list of vocabulary words with possible corresponding sentences. Match It mirrors that format, and allows students to choose word lists based on difficulty level, and whether they want alphabetical or random choices.
For those preparing for their SAT exam, Vocabulary.co.il has come to the rescue with their selection of SAT games. The verbal part of the SAT exam tests a student’s vocabulary and reading comprehension. About half of the questions in the verbal section will be specifically to test vocabulary skills, but even the reading comprehension section depends heavily on the reader’s ability to figure out unfamiliar words in context. Our SAT Vocabulary games replicate the word and sentence matching format that is so common in standardized exams. The difference in this game, however, is that the word choices focus on the words that most frequently occur in the SAT exam.
If you, your students, or your child are preparing for upcoming standardized tests, we hope that these standardized test-prep games, and the many other quality vocabulary games at Vocabulary.co.il will not only help you build your word power, but make the process and practice a lot more fun.
American school students have been making the news in recent weeks – - but not necessarily for the right reasons. Some educational analysts are concerned after the most recent release of the PISA results. The PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) compares literacy in math, reading, and science from a sample of 15-year-old school students from various countries around the globe.
Despite multiple attempts at educational reform in the United States in the last ten years, including heavy emphasis on high-stakes testing, the newest results reveal that American students are still slipping further and further behind their counterparts in other countries. But cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?” notes an interesting difference in the results of testing American 10th graders, and 4th graders:
On the PISA, U.S. kids typically score about average relative to kids from other participating countries. They rank in the middle of the pack, around 20th.
What’s notable to me is that U.S. fourth graders have usually done better.
Those tests (the TIMSS for science and math, and the PIRLS for reading) are not directly comparable, of course. That said, U.S. fourth graders have typically scored above the mean of participating countries, and typically rank somewhat above the middle of the pack, usually about 10th, noticeably different than 10th graders.
Willingham goes on to suggest that this discrepancy in test scores could be caused by the fact that the material tested in the early grades is mostly factual knowledge, while scoring well on upper level testing requires an ability to think abstractly and conceptually. He believes that we are doing a disservice to our student population by focusing on “teaching to the test”, rather than focusing on strengthening logical thinking.
Willingham’s conclusions lead me to believe that from the earliest grades, students need to be taught to make analogies, transfer learning from one situation to another, and decipher meaning from context. This type of analytical thinking is the only way we can hope to lessen the learning gap between ourselves and the growing multitude of countries that are outshining us.
