Can someone tell me if you have to have a subscription to Reading A-Z in order to use Raz Kids? Also, can students access it from their computers at home? Thanks! I'd like to use this program next year and need to sell my principal on the idea!
I use the Raz-kids for interactive reading in class. It is great. I set up me as a student so I can use the questions too.
Our PTA purchased Raz-kids and I ended up getting a subscription for A to Z. They work great together.
One of the great things about Raz-kids is students can record themselves at home and you are able to leave students messages. RK also has worksheets that are great for homework.
You don't need A-Z to purchase Raz-Kids. The site will ask you if you want A-Z and that you can get printed books that couple nicely with the Raz books, but you don't need to purchase both. I have Raz-Kids, but I don't have A-Z. It is $90 for 1 year. It allows you to have 36 students on your roster. I purchased this myself and it is the best money I have spent in my classroom this year. I have a high number of Spanish Speaking parents. They were all very thankful because they want their kids to get pactice reading, but don't speak English. So when English books go home, they don't know how to pronounce the words. One parent actually told me that she listens the the stories (on Raz) 3-4 times so when her son reads, she knows if is reading the words correctly. Then she said that it is helping her learn English. I was so happy
There is a an app if your students have ipads. In order to use the app you need to have purchased both reading a to z and razkids. I am trying it out this week! I just convinced my principal to buy the subscription! I am super excited to see if their reading improves
I love both of these sites! We just recently started using the programs and I am looking for ways to convince admin. that we need them every year! The kids love Raz Kids! They have access to so many quality books. I like the quizzes and the fact that they can work on reading skills and listening comprehension independently! This is perfect for Daily 5's read to self and listen to reading. It works well with guided reading.
Teachers and parents can both monitor student progress. Students can use the program at home. They can reread and listen to the books as many times as they need to and retake quizzes if necessary!
I also love the reports feature. You can quickly see what specific skills the whole class as well as individual students need to work on.
I also like that we can access more leveled books to print off and use with guided reading groups or we can pull a book up on our Smartboard and model strategies as a whole group lesson through Reading A-Z. Our paras also use these books for small group intervention. There is a wealth of information on the sites as well! I am just beginning to find all of the benefits of using these programs! The possibilities seem endless!
Learning A-Z is the parent company to Reading A-Z and Raz-Kids. They have other sites as well. Our school has purchased Raz-Kids and we all love it! It's especially nice to have in the summer. We noticed at our school that it helped with the "summer slide". A lot of our students not only maintained their reading level but some advanced.
I have Reading A-Z as well and I highly recommend it to go with Raz-Kids. It does allow you to get the iPad app which is nice for parents as well. Raz-Kids will not work on iPads otherwise unless you download the free Rover app but going through Rover is cumbersome. If you have Reading A-Z, you can print out some of the Raz-Kid books. My kids love having the electronic version and then the paper version. There are also books you can print out in Spanish. I've loved that for my ESL students. There are lessons plans and just so much more!
I feel that these sites are not only good for teachers but are a bridge to use with parents. I have my kids read on Raz at home. I love that I know they are reading a book on their level and then taking a quiz on it. Parents so often don't know what questions to ask or don't have their kids read a just right book. I also love that I can send messages to the kids and so can their parents. Their parents can set up Raz through their email and it will show them how their child is doing. They can also send encouraging messages to their kids. It's just a huge resource and there are tons of things you can do with it to build your reading program!
Last edited by digitalpiano; 03-02-2013 at 10:43 AM..
that my class does not have ipads so we don't need the app. We listen on laptop computers. If you have computers then you don't need A-Z. I have my Raz acct. linked to my school webpage.
Thanks so much for your responses! I have used A-Z in the past but don't currently have a subscription. Copy counts are limited so that was always an issue when I used A-Z. I love that Raz Kids can be accessed at home as well. I do Daily 5 and can see how it will help my students so much. Thanks again!
My school has had Raz kids for a few years and we love it. I use Raz for homework. I have a card that goes home and the kids are asked to read a story a night and parents sign the card. It has really helped the kids with fluency and comprehension especially my below level kids. And the parents voice that they love seeing where their kids are in reading. I use it in school for D5 and guided reading especially for smart board work. Love all the opportunities it allows. Can't say enough positive things about it and they added messages from the teacher with bonus stars this year that the kids work harder for- it is a hit in my first grade.
Love love razkids. Also love love atoz for all the reasons mentioned above, also, many of the a to z books can also be printed in spanish. I send the spanish version home for mom to read in conjunction with junior's english book. Can't wait for some of the razkids books to be in spanish, too.
My school doesn't have a subscription, but I bought my own subscription to RAZ-Kids. I teach K and I love it! I am able to have 36 students. I assigned my students names like Student 1, Student 2... and individual passwords so there are no personal identifiers which is reassuring to parents. I printed out the username/password cards so students have one at home and one in school. I started out doing it on the Smartboard as a whole group initially. Instead of assigning a student name, I called it Class Practice. I did that to familiarize my students with the format-how to log on, how to select books and different options, how to take quizzes... I have a small laptop and a small desktop PC that my students use. Now they work on RAZ-Kids independently during D5 as part of the Read to Self or Listen to Reading components. They can also go there during Free Choice Centers time.
In K, at the beginning of the year, it is great to have RAZ-Kids for the few students who enter K already reading. It is an easy way to have materials for all the different levels in your classroom. I love that there are Level aa books for my K students who aren't reading yet. They like to listen and then "read" the books. (Level aa books do not have quizzes.)
I also have a subscription to Reading A-Z. I highly recommend this, too. This opens up all the titles from Reading A-Z. Students can read those titles as e-books in the On Your Own section.
There are three options: Listen to a book. Read the book. Record yourself reading the book. The feature where students can record themselves reading the book is a powerful motivator. My students love having us listen to their reading so every now and then I'll show the book on the Smartboard and we'll listen to a student's recording. I check RAZ-Kids every day and I always have several recordings to listen to from the previous night. The students do the recordings at home. After listening to the recording, I love that I can send a personal message to the student. I'll make encouraging comments and tell them the things I noticed them doing. For example, "I like how you stopped when it didn't make sense. You fixed it and then reread. That is what good readers do."
I have a student who repeated K. She continues to struggle this year. She is reading Level A books on RAZ-Kids. I have noticed that it is building her confidence. She is smiling when she comes to small group. She is so motivated to read now. She reads on RAZ-Kids almost every night and reads more than one book during a session. She has read more books/taken more quizzes than any other student in my class this year. The smile on her face when I shared that fact with the class was priceless! All the other students were in awe of her. She was so proud.
I find the RAZ-Kids site to be valuable to me as a teacher. Other sites, including the one for the literacy program my district adopted, offer books for student to listen and read; however, RAZ-Kids goes one step further by offering quizzes that students can take after reading the book to check for understanding. If a child doesn't do well on a quiz, he/she is encouraged to reread the book and try again. I am able to see the scores for all the quizzes, as well as, see the actual items that were missed. It will also tell me what kinds of things like-main idea, recall info.... the student needs to work on. My K students can click on the questions/answers to have them read to them so they don't need me to read those to them if they get stuck.
I can print hard copies of the books and many of the books have worksheets that I can print. I love that I can find books at the higher levels to use with my advanced readers when I work with them in small groups during guided reading.
There is another feature that I want to try. You can do online running records. How convenient is that! Has anyone else used that feature? I would love to hear your opinion about the online running records.
There is an iPad app. (The iPads in my school don't have Flash, but when I talked with the tech guy, he said that there is an app that works like Flash that you can purchase.) I am hoping that I can "borrow" some of the iPads for my classroom.
A PP mentioned that the subscription runs for a year so students can keep reading throughout the summer to help prevent summer lag.
Another great website to use aside from RazKids is Beestar. RazKids really helps with building the foundation for my students. My students do learn more critical thinking skills from Beestar. It also provides these grammar components to help them with their writing skills. I think both websites are great but Beestar helps my students achieve higher scores in the long run.
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03-01-2013, 03:23 AM
