A few weeks ago I was contacted by Snap Learning to try out their site and write a review...I am so glad I said yes!!
Snap Learning is a website that offers districts, teachers, and homeschooling parents an opportunity to use a quality of resources for Guided Reading or Close Reading. After looking into the two different programs I chose to try the Close Reading program to use as a Tier III RtI intervention with a few of my students.
There are MANY components of Snap Learning that I love and one of those components is the ability to create a collection of texts for my students to use for their Close Reading practice. The books/text available on the site a Fountas and Pinnell aligned, which is a program our district it dedicated to. Since we are starting our Main Idea lessons I created a Main Idea collection of text for my students to choose from. In the image above you can see the level of each text and the skills Main Idea and Summary. I also love the variety of text that are offered, there are so many different titles for students to choose from!
Above is a snapshot of one of my 4th graders reading the Rocks and Minerals text. They are working on this Science skill so I had them all select that text for that day for us to go through the steps of Close Reading together, and to help gain another Science grade. :)
The upper grades students are to use the MI(main idea) button to underline the parts of the text that helped them determine their answer. All answers are written responses....how AWESOME is that!
Below is one of the text my 2nd grade son completed, I was able to go into my Teacher Dashboard to view his answers. After identifying the Main Idea of each paragraph students then summarize the text. One of the best features of this program is that students are required to read the text a minimum of three times.
I have my students choose the text they wish to read to help increase their reading interest.
I think my favorite feature of the Snap Learning Close Reading program would be their Text Dependent Questions. These questions require Higher Order Thinking skills and for the student to really dig deeper into the text and think! Again, not a multiple choice question but a written response...LOVE it!
Above the program highlights the sentence as it reads the text aloud, text is read aloud when they select the "play" button.
Since we have just started using Snap Learning I don't have too much data on my students yet, but we are off to a great start! I am able to see what books they have selected to read, their written responses, and how long it took them to complete each task.
Below is frame work for Snap Learning's Close Reading program.
I am excited to continue to use this program throughout the year and can't wait to see the gains my students will make. I will continue to update you on them and how the program is working for us. I hope you check out Snap Learning and are able to implement it with your students!
