Reading Week Website of the Week: Seussville

Dr. Seuss books are beloved by both Little Miss Techie and Captain Computer. Fox in Socks has always been one of Little Miss Techie’s favorites and recently Captain Computer has taken a liking to Dr. Seuss’s ABCs. If your children are Dr. Seuss fans like ours are, Seussville is a wonderful place to visit. At Seussville, there are games for every age and reading stage. Here are some highlights for beginning/emergent readers and fluent readers.

Emergent readers are children who display curiosity about books and reading. They tend to rely on pictures to tell the story but are also starting to focus on print. Emergent readers know can recognize some letters and their associated sounds. They are also able to write some letters. The following Seussville games are beneficial to emergent readers:

• Help Mr. Brown Color– Children color designated letters either red or blue. This helps them work on letter recognition and colors at the same time.
• Cat in the Hat ABC Hide and Seek helps children work on beginning word sounds. Children are given a word and have to find the letter it starts with.

A fluent reader reads quickly, smoothly, and with expression. They recognize many words and therefore have a large sight word vocabulary. Fluent readers are able to use what they know about words to figure out unknown words they see on a page and correct any errors they make when reading. They are good at understanding what they have read and can often tell the beginning, middle, and end of a story and infer details about characters and the plot. Fluent readers use what they know about reading to write. Here are some excellent games for fluent readers:

• Fox in Socks Word Matching Game is good for children who are recently reading fluently and recognize sight words and can also make sense of three word simple sentences. In this game, readers look at a picture and use words from word bank to form a sentence describing what they see.
• Seussville Storymaker features characters from Horton Hears a Who. Fluent readers and writers, get to practice their story writing skills to create a 3 scene story between various Horton Hears a Who characters. Children begin by typing their
  name and the title of their story then select background, characters, music, and text before typing what they would like the selected characters to say to each other.
• The Diffendoofer Teachers Have Lost Their Rooms is a wonderful game for practicing reading comprehension. In this game, children need to read the text that appears on the screen describing each of the Diffendoofer Teachers. Based on what is read, they click on a door, listen for a sound, and try to match the teacher to the appropriate classroom.

Of course, these games are only a small selection of what is available at Seussville. Take a look for yourself before turning your children loose on the site. Chances are they will enjoy playing with their favorite characters while important reading concepts are being reinforced.

Oh, and if you find your child getting increasingly frustrated with the games, find the Seussville games that are just right and create a folder with links to just those games. While it won’t prevent your child from being taken to a game that is too easy or hard, it is an easy way for them to locate their favorites.

And no, I didn’t make up the terms emergent and fluent reader! Definition of emergent readers adapted from America Reads at Penn State. Definition of fluent reader adapted from Education Oasis.