Word Expander

1. Word Expander Project for Mrs. Lynch’s Kindergarten Vartan Gregorian Elementary School Erika Faires, Jennifer Rosenbaum, John Goodwin, Caroline Weinstein

2. What Mrs. Lynch Wants: “Mrs. Lynch would like a word expander program that would let students try to spell or identify words based on visual images and/or audio cues. She envisions a program that would let a student stretch a word out, based on something they hear or see, using some sort of engaging point and drag interface.” - From the original project description

3. Who is the audience? • Kindergarten children, many of whom are non-native English speakers • Students come from a variety of social backgrounds • Achievement varies from student to student, necessitating that the program be useful for multiple reading levels • Students that have computer access outside of school

4. Goals: • Reinforce spelling and word recognition for kindergarten students • Provide positive feedback for users • Use a combination of animation, graphics, and audio to interest students and present material • Mirror classroom learning by incorporating Mrs. Lynch’s teaching methods of “word families”

5. What do we mean by “Expanding Words?” • Mrs. Lynch teaches reading by focusing on a “word chunk” such as _AT or _OY • Students learn a group of words (a word family) with the same “word chunk,” like cat, bat, mat, and flat • Recognizing the “word chunk” helps the students stretch out or expand the word

6. Flow of the Program

10. a t a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z EXIT

11. Click to hear audio Click and drag a letter to the blank Each star represents a word spelled correctly Final Answer

12. Some letters are removed after 3 incorrect attempts a t a c d f g h i j k m n q r s v w y z EXIT

14. :39 a t a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z EXIT Correct: 3