Get ready to fight the summer slide with BookFlix
Parents have a hard enough job without having to worry about the dreaded summer slide. “Summer slide” is the tendency for students to lose some of the achievements they gained during the previous school year. But, there’s good news! Your public library is filled with great resources and programs to help combat that slide and it’s totally free! One such resource, BookFlix, is a personal favorite.
BookFlix is an online literature resource that pairs picturebooks with a nonfiction counterpart. Each fiction/nonfiction pair is divided into one of nine categories: animals and nature, earth and sky, family and community, people and places, music and rhyme, ABC’s and 1, 2, 3’s, adventure, imagination, and celebrations. The homepage always spotlights a featured pair of books which coordinate with seasonal events.
Each pair of books contains five elements to explore. “Watch the story” allows the user to view the animated version of the picturebook, with closed-captioning and read-along options available. “Read the book” focuses on nonfiction content related to the picturebook, where children and adults can either read the story together, or the child can select the read along option to hear the text read aloud. There is a game section located under “Puzzlers”. “Word Match” reinforces the vocabulary introduced in the two stories. Finally, “Fact or Fiction” helps to show the differences between the two book categories. Each pair will also contain a “Meet the Author” and “Explore the Web” section. All links provided through BookFlix have been specially reviewed and contain age-appropriate content.
Parents can benefit from other features, including lesson plans, state and national curriculum correlations, some Spanish Language versions, and an educator’s guide that provides suggestions and tips for parent/child interactions.
With wonderful tools such as BookFlix, avoiding the dreaded “summer slide” just got a bit easier!
Currently there is not an app available, however, the website can be accessed and run through your tablet’s internet browser.
– Gabrielle Bolland, Robinson Township Public Library