Thursday 23 January 2014

Online Story books from Oxford Owl (tablet-friendly eBooks)

I came across a mention of Oxford Owl website from a beautiful blog, Teaching ideas, that I happen to follow in facebook. They have loads of resources for kids covering all aspects of school life and also fun out-of-school activities. When I checked out the site, I was pleasantly surprised by what I found!

If you have children in Primary School, you would only know too well about "The Oxford Reading Tree", "Magic Key" and the adventures of Biff, Chip, Kipper and their dog Floppy. They have helped children get on the reading ladder and build confidence in beautiful steps ( colour coded in schools as reading levels) for many many years and are quite tried, tested and trusted by schools all across UK. The books range from wordless ones to chapter books for confident, free readers and apart from the magic key stories, there are also non-fiction books and even classics retold for kids.

Oxford Owl (http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/) has a collection of 250 eBooks from the Oxford Reading Tree series and also other picture books, all tablet-compatible and free to be enjoyed by children on-the-go! The children could read the books by themselves, or can turn on the audio to listen to while reading. The classics are all audio books (Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, White Fang) and are really handy as stand-by for mums when they are too busy to read to kids, and also on long car journeys. The books are meant for ages 1+ to 11 and you'd be quite spoilt for choice as well. For a while, at least!

DS2 was very pleased to find a book there about the very first illustrator he knew from his nursery days - Alex Brychta, the illustrator of the Oxford Reading Tree series. It was interesting seeing his very first drawing (which was smashing, for a 9 year old!) and how he made his challenging journey from a little displaced boy to a talented and renowned illustrator that he is today.

The website also has help for parents on ways to assist the children who struggle with reading and many phonics resources as well.

All you need to do is to create a login credential so the children could access the books.

Check out the library here and enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Wonderful link GOmathy... just looked thru it.. very useful

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    1. Isn't it, Rosh! Was happy to h ave discovered this.I loved the way the wordless books for toddlers were read out, so much to observe and imagine and talk about, but parent insist their child gets moved up to worded books immediately!

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