ILA Website Review #4: Arcademics.com by Celia Chavez

Arcademics is a fabulous educational website that I recently came across. It is an educational gaming site. While a number of subjects are available, the site can be used specifically for literacy purposes. The grades covered are Kindergarten through 6th grade, but Arcademics can also be used by teachers of higher secondary grades for struggling readers and writers. It's a very attractive website that is extremely easy to navigate. The sign-up is free for educators, and is a simple process, as well. 

Students can access the games themselves, or teachers can create classes and even assign specific games to certain students, or to the entire class. There is a tracking system available for a fee. On the website, Arcademics is described as taking the “edu-gaming” approach, in which students learn through repetition of material, so as to increase fluency. The two categories of edu-games that would be most useful for developing literacy skills would be Language Arts and Spelling. Arcademics is dynamic because it provides a non-threatening platform for improving specific skills, without the typical stigma of bad grades or other punitive consequences. 

There is a plethora of Language Arts games on Arcademics, each with a specific focus and goal. Some of the categories of the games include letter recognition and word recognition, and get more complicated for the older grade levels. Other topics are subject verb agreement and synonyms, and so much more. I played Giraffe Karts, and it was very fun and visually appealing. The topic was subject verb agreement, and you have to answer questions based on that topic. The more you answer, the faster you go. The games also include other players, which can be other classmates or challenging the computer. The competitive nature of these games increases interest and vigor in our students, while adding a fun and casual element.

I would definitely use a lot of the games on Arcademics, even for my readers that are not struggling. It is always a good idea to review important skills, because middle school students tend to start forgetting the grammar and spelling rules that they learned in elementary. Even though they learned those skills in the past, they often still make mistakes in those learned areas. I know my students are going to love these games, because they absolutely are obsessed with Blooket and Gimkit, other Edu-games. I give Arcademics a high rating on the basis of usefulness for literacy, ease of use, and aesthetics. I can’t wait to implement some of the games into my lessons.