Alexander Pascual - IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

 Alexander Pascual

ED638-40

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

Literacy Planet (https://www.literacyplanet.com/) is an educational online software that enables K-5 teachers to provide early literacy instruction to their students in an engaging way. Literacy Planet presents learning literacy skills in a gamified fashion. In other words, students who are presented with activities through this website are able to learn reading and writing skills by playing games, scoring points, earning rewards, and solving problems, all while having fun and being challenged simultaneously. To begin, students are tasked to complete an initial diagnostic or placement test in order for the site to configure which games are best suited for each student’s learning. In this sense, Literacy Planet accounts for differentiated instruction. Thereafter, students will be set on their own unique adventures, tasked with sets of learning “missions” to complete, and prompted to continue on their set learning path through the Literacy Planet universe.

One benefit to using Literacy Planet is that it is linked to current curriculum and standards being taught at schools now. Examples of literacy skills taught through the Literacy Planet games include lessons on phonics, sight words, spelling, beginning reading, punctuation, grammar, and comprehension. More specifically, in one example video of the learning program, students were presented with sound bytes of certain words and tasked with the challenge of typing the word out. If a student typed the word successfully, they will have both practiced their listening skills as well as earn points to promote themselves in the game.

A key feature of using Literacy Planet as an online literacy tool is that while students play, a report of their performance in the corresponding literacy skills are being reported in real-time to the instructor. This enables teachers to determine whether their individual student is growing in proficiency or needing further intervention with the skill. Charts and graphics of this data are automated in a specific tab accessible to only an instructor’s account. The data will even go as far as to indicate which students among the class have improved in a specific mission or improved overall.

The only downside to using Literacy Planet is that it is a learning website catered to students of the younger grade level demographic. Although the learning platform is colorful and engaging, students who have mastered the foundational skills of literacy will see little use or fun in Literacy Planet. However, as a tool for promoting literacy in the elementary level, this platform does exceptionally well.