UDL Learning Tool – Wiggleworks

One UDL tool I wish I could use in my placement is Wiggleworks. (too bad it costs over $2,000 !!! Not quite in my price range as of yet.)Wiggleworks is an interactive technology program that combines level books and instructional materials with technology to develop reading, writing, and language skills. The program focuses on scaffolding instruction and advancing students toward reading independently and fluently. I’m currently in a second grade placement with a reading specialist. I have a group of seven students that are struggling with basic phonics skills that I teach in a small-group direct instruction environment in the back of the classroom for the last half hour of our 2 hour reading session each day. One component of Wiggleworks that would really meet the needs of this small group is the magnet board that works on phonics skills. The magnet board component is an activity that allows students to manipulate letters and sounds to form words. The teacher can pre-record directions that the student can listen to over and over again when clarification is needed and the student can save their work to return to or show their teacher later. I have created similar activities to the magnet board component of Wiggleworks including dry-erase boards and sorting word cards, but Wiggleworks would greatly cut down on the amount of materials I would need to create. Instead of creating sets of MANY word cards for each lesson and compiling long lists of words to write on the dry-erase boards, students could be provided with the magnet board on Wiggleworks that directly corresponds with the book they read in an earlier component.

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