I’m a stickler when it comes to eBook apps and always look at new ones with a critical eye to ensure that they’re easy to navigate, the reading content can grow with my children, and my must-have feature- words are highlighted as they are read for beginning readers. Launched this summer, Scholastic’s Storia app does all the above and so much more! I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything less from Scholastic, who I have always regarded as a leader in education, but they have truly created an app that we love because the content serves the needs of readers, regardless of their diverse abilities.
Storia allows me to purchase eBooks and create separate bookshelves for Captain Computer (age 6) and Little Miss Techie (almost 9). I can shop by age and assign eBooks to each child’s bookshelf, ensuring that the content is just right for them.
Storia makes it easy to find age appropriate reading materials
6 year old Captain Computer is working on becoming a more fluent reader. Favorite series include Henry and Mudge, books by Leo Lionni, and any story involving a dog. His reading skills have really taken off this year. He enjoys reading more challenging text independently through Storia’s eBooks but also loves the Storia Read-to-Me eBooks because they’re expressive, contain music, sound effects that match the story, and highlight the text as it’s being read to help increase his sight word vocabulary. Read-to-Me books draw kids into the story thanks to their engaging and fun nature.
Little Miss Techie is a third grader who reads text well beyond what is typical for her age. She loves Harry Potter, The Little House on the Prairie series, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid but also devours nonfiction books, especially anything about the Titanic, Civil War, and containing interesting facts. She often reads quickly but in order to make sure she understands what is being read, I like for her to use the enriched Storia eBooks to ensure that she’s comprehending what she’s reading and retaining information. Since the books she’s reading are more advanced and contain words she might not be quite familiar with yet, it’s also helpful to have access to the Storia Dictionary. If she comes across a word she’s not quite sure of, she can touch or highlight it with her finger and the Storia Dictionary pop up window will appear with age appropriate definitions with words, pictures, and an optional read aloud feature where she can hear the word as it should be pronounced. This feature saves her from yelling, “Mooooommmm! What does this word mean?”
The only challenging part of using Storia is choosing what books to add to your child’s bookshelf!
Other things I love about Storia:
- This holiday season, with every Storia purchase, Scholastic and Toys for Tots are donating a book to a child in need.
- Parents get 5 free books immediately upon downloading the app but there are endless titles available to satisfy your most voracious reader!
- Storia has helpful how-to video tutorials that range from setting up Storia, purchasing Storia eBooks for your iPad, customizing bookshelves, using reading reports, and more once you’re ready to get started.
To help you build your Storia eBook collection, Scholastic is offering one $25 Storia gift card! To enter, use the Rafflecopter form below!
Scholastic shares Storia with bloggers during a summer brunch
Scholastic provided me with a gift card to download Storia eBooks but all other books on our Storia bookshelves are personally purchased! No additional compensation was received for this post or hosting the giveaway.
I have 3 kids – ages 9, 7 and 2. My 9 yr old likes all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. 7 yr old is into Junie B Jones (she’s read almost all of them). And my 2 year old loves Llama, Llama books (ok, I do, too!).
My 4 year old son loves all Clifford books and Curious George. I read them to him.
I love the read to me ebooks – my 4 year old will love that!
My son is 8 and his current favorite book is the New Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.
The how to video tutorials would be helpful!
What a coincidence — our school’s Scholastic book fast is about to start and so I was browsing the on-line site and wondered to myself, “What is Storia?” Now I know! Can’t wait to download that app!
My two youngest are 3 and 12 and their favorite books are froggys baby sister and the name of this book is secret
tbarrettno1 at gmail dot com
My son is almost 2 and he has many favorite books- Freight Train, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon…
My 4 year old is currently enjoying Tyler’s Pancakes.
I think it is helpful that I can create separate bookshelves.
My granddaughter is 3 years old and love ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak
callawishes(at)hotmail(dot)com
My kids are 8,6,5 and 3. They love everything but have been reading a lot of Magic Tree House!
My kids are 11, 9, 5 and they are reading the Hobbit, the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Little Critter!!
My kids are 9, 9, and 14. They all love long chapter books, especially the Lightening Thief series.
The feature I like best is definitely them being able to click on a word and be able to see the definition or have it read aloud to them. This will be extremely helpful to one of my kids.
7, all the Magic Tree House
I think the text highlighting will help
9, Diary of a WK Third Wheel
setting reading levels
My daughter is 10 and is all about Dear Dumb Diary books!
coriwestphal at msn dot com
I love that the books are sorted by age group, and the fact that there is a tap dictionary (just like my kindle) so my daughter can look up any words she doesn’t understand! No more “Mommy, what does this word mean?”! Yay!
coriwestphal at msn dot com
Ooh….looking forward to trying this. My 2nd grader is just beginning to actually enjoy reading, so this will work well!