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Literacy - Kidspiration

Page history last edited by Erin 10 years, 11 months ago

 

Erin Peregrine, Danielle Simler, Rachel Moroney

 


The Leader in Visual Thinking and Learning - Inspiration.com

 

 

What is Kidspiration?

Kidspiration is a cross-curricular computer program geared for students in grades K-5 to create and innovate a piece of work. Kidspiration works the way students think and learn and the way teachers teach. This program is a fully functional tool that incorporates, pictures, text, numbers, and other visual aides to help develop a reading, writing, and math skills. This is a program that incorporates and extends visual thinking.

Visual learning helps learners better understand and retain information when ideas, words and concepts are associated with images. Students can easily make visual connections, and feel confident to build up the fundamental skills in reading and writing. All of these visuals are used to motivate students to develop their thoughts and form a well-written piece. Not only can students create their own projects, Kidspiration also provides templates for standard based reading and writing activities. Kidspiration is an excellent program that can help students build literacy skills in a way that will be engaging and interactive.

 

 

 

How can it help students?

Kidspiration is a tool that can help increase literacy skills, and for students to be comfortable in their reading and writing. In reading and writing, Kidspiration builds students word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension and writing expression using visual tools that combine pictures, text and spoken words.

 

Tools to Improve reading and writing skills...

 

WORD GUIDE


Word guide is an extremely beneficial tool that builds and supports vocabulary and reading comprehension. It has easy access to 13,000 words. Each entry has a definition, recorded pronunciation, synonyms and antonyms, syllabication, parts of speech and sample sentences.  Some works are paired with images to enhance comprehension. The word guides also aligns with TESL vocabulary to support ELL and ESL students. This word guide enhances word recognition and comprehension.

 

 

AUDIO SUPPORT

 

Kidspiration  incorporates an extremely supportive tool of audio and listening capabilities. With the listening tool students can hear any text read aloud, to strengthen word pronunciation, word recognition and comprehension. Not only can the students listen to audio they can also record their own thoughts and ideas. This can be a very valuable tool for classrooms who have ELL/ESL students.  ESL and ELL learners can record instructions in native languages to enhance student understanding. (Inspiration.com)

 

PICTURE VIEW

 

Picture View is a great way to help learners plan their writing while developing reading skills. Students are able to strengthen word recognition, vocabulary and word comprehension. This organization tool allows students to visually see their thoughts and ideas as they combine pictures with words. Students are able to create word maps, diagrams, webs, and many other plans to help their writing come to life. There are over 3,000 different symbols in the Kidspiration Library, so there should be an approriate symbol to express the students thoughts and ideas. If there is not a symbol the students can always create their own symbol using the Symbol Maker. When students create their plan in picture view they can click the “Go to Writing View” button and it will automatically take the thoughts and outline it into a piece of writing.

(Below are some examples of how students can organize their writing using pictures.)

 

 

 

 

READING SKILLS

 

Students can also develop letter sounds, blends,

and vocabulary. Learners can find pictures/symbols that start with A, B, C .... and this will help with letter and sound recognition. The audio function is a great resource when learning letter sounds. If the “Listen” function is on (the ear) it will read what is typed to help the learner recognize the sound. However, if a student places a picture/symbol in the working space it will not have a label, so the ear function will not work. BUT at the bottom of the page “Show Captions” can be turned on and will label the picture, therefore the “Listen” function will work. Vocabulary is what ultimately helps develop reading skills. In Kidspiration students can expand their vocabulary using pictures. When students can connect words to pictures they have a higher chance of remembering.

 

 

Example of teaching vocabulary.

 

 

WRITING VIEW 

 

Writing View allows students to strengthen their writing skills using a variety of organizational and integrated tools. When the Writing View is opened students may immediately begin outlining their writing ideas. There is a button with a plus sign at the top of the page that allows students to add an idea. From here, students may continue to add ideas as lists, outlines, details, etc. This tool is also easily integrated with the picture view and allows students expand their thoughts into a written form. This connection between visual images and written expression creates continuity and builds students writing skills. As stated earlier, students can map out their thoughts in Picture View then switch to Writing View and vice versa. The symbols used in Picture View are immediately transferred into an outline format allowing students to take their thoughts to the next level. The outline format automatically separates ideas into main topics and subtopics. Below are two examples of how student’s symbolic understanding transfers to a written understanding using the Writing View:

 

 

 

            

 

 

Once student’s picture maps, webs, etc. are in outline form, students may click in a section of the outline and type their own thoughts. This method will help students stay organized in their thinking and writing. Students can also add additional sections  with the click of a button and there is plenty of space for students to type. Students may also change the format, font and size of their typing to add emphasis or detail to their writing. After students have typed their thoughts into the outline format, the work is easily transferred to word processing software where students can continue to edit, revise or print their work.

 

Last, this section of Kidspiration also features audiovisual recordings allowing students to hear instructions and listen to what they have written. The Writing View section of Kidspiration is a useful tool that seamlessly integrates writing with other ways of thinking. Students can think, create, outline and write all in one program. The tools available in this section will support all different learning levels allowing all students to be successful within their writing.

 

Feel Overwhelmed?

 

If you are not sure where to start there is no need to worry. Kidspiration has Reading and Writing activities already created. All you have to do is insert your own text. Kidspiration offers activities ranging from beginning letters, beginning sounds, blending sounds, compound words, character analysis, generating questions, KWL, and many more. Kidspiration is a great, creative  way to target the needs of all individual students. This program is a way for students to feel comfortable in their reading and writing skills.

 

Useful Links For Teachers

 

This  informal video was created by a classroom teacher who was exploring Kidspiration for use in her classroom. The video shows her navigating the site with a real time view of the website and the software. Her commentary compliments the video and shows the vast features and uses Kidspiration offers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwAmy5D9MY

 

Creating a Diagram for  Picture View (Tutorial) http://www.inspiration.com/sites/default/files/documents/Picture_View.pdf

 

Working with ideas in Writing View

http://www.inspiration.com/sites/default/files/documents/Writing_View.pdf

 

This is a PDF file that has lesson plans that use Kidspiration. The lesson plans are sectioned off into subject areas. It also has a simple tutorial at the end may be easier to understand than the tutorials on the actual Kidspiration page.

http://www.broward.k12.fl.us/inspiration/KidsInTheClassroom.pdf

 

The following two links include sample Kidspiration graphics and associated lesson plans from actual classrooms.

http://www.wacona.com/kidspiration/kidspiration.html

http://www.northcanton.sparcc.org/~elem/kidspiration/presentation/handout.html

 

 

30 Day Free Trial

 

Kidspiration offers at 30 Day Free Trial in order for educators to explore the features and benefits of the software. The following link will take you to the free trial download page:  http://www.inspiration.com/Freetrial/Kidspiration

 

 

Sources Used:

http://www.inspiration.com/Kidspiration 

http://sites.fcps.org/trt/kidspiration

http://www.atomiclearning.com/freekidspc2x.shtml

 

 

 

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