Smories.com
What is it?
Smories is pure art in its ultimate riveting form. It is a learning tool designed by children to other children. A vast collection of famous stories and works of literature targeted for children audience narrated for other children. You will be amazed how your most contentious and hyperactive child will sit there transfixed engrossed in a riveting experience of learning watching a peer telling a story. Parents and teachers always complain that they cannot control their children’s short span of attention. Well, here is your chance to make it all happen!!! Not only those, but now your children can download these small stories and watch them on their i-phones and ipads while the mother is cooking or doing her house chores. If you are on a long trip with your kids, there is no need to worry anymore because now you can sit down, relax while your kids are watching these stories.
Why to use it?
• Simple, free, and easy to use.
• Does not need high speed internet connection.
• Since they are made for children for children, they stimulate intrinsic motivation reinforce learners’ autonomy who cannot wait to watch other videos of their peers.
• All content is safe and censored so parents can leave their child work on this website freely because nothing can be submitted without the authors consent. It is well-worth mentioning that innovators of this tool are parents who came up with this idea from their children.
• Stories are categorized according to age groups from 3-5, 6-8, and 5-7. Therefore, they are tailored to different kids’ needs and levels.
Most stories have subtitles and a brief summary of what the story is about is provided at the bottom.
• These stories subconsciously instill the importance of literature and lead to scaffolding because children of the age 3 can listen to stories told by other children of the age of 7 or 8.
• Information about each author is easy to access with the click of a button.
• Children can submit their feedback on these stories for the narrators and authors to see.
• All children are filmed in their rooms or preferred settings so that they can be relaxed and project this feeling on other children watching them at home.
• Kids narrators might stumble or mispronounce words because they are not edited so that other kids who are watching can naturally learn, process, and acquire the language used. This is a pillar principle in the theories of SLA.
• Two main accents are featured of American and British English.
• Children can record their own stories and enter the competition for best story told. There are monthly winners featured on the winners section. This can push children to unwittingly learn and improve their English. They will also develop a sense of satisfaction and achievement after their stories get published or win a competition.
How to use it?
It is mostly used at home at children’s leisure and at their own pace and this is where all this tool’s powerful impact stems from. They can also be used in class as warm ups for kids to watch and explain to their peers what they have learnt. Children can also be assigned a reading of their own choice to be recorded for the whole class to watch for all the right reasons!!!
Watch this heartthrob kid who is telling 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and notice how facial expressions, gestures and other paralinguistic features have a huge impact o understanding. She even make evaluative comments on the story, for example, she says 'this might sound a little bit weired.......the prince asked....if he could marry her, but she looked so beautiful when she was asleep'
Limitations:
I cannot see any limitations to this website since it is free, censored, and does not need a speedy internet connection to be used.
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