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Literacy > Digital Resources > Inside Stories Home

Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Ginger Bread Man and more.... Inside Stories
Traditional Tales with Software / Interactive for Years 1-4 (P2-5)



Sample screen from Cinderella Inside Stories Set 2


What is Inside Stories?
  • over 60 different interactive activities - focused on literacy objectives and key skills
  • the 8 titles gradually increase in challenge to provide a carefully structured programme
  • ideal for whole class teaching (use for shared reading or writing)
  • an excellent resource for small group and individual work

Activities are designed to help children integrate text level work, sentence level work and word level work. These often involve children working with and/or helping to construct new texts built around characters or themes from the story. Many of the print-out activities and copy masters focus on writing and strongly encourage creative and critical thinking.

  • Set 1 (4 titles) is targeted at six and seven-year-olds
  • Set 2 (4 titles) is target at seven and eight-year-olds
  • useful for preparing children for SATs at KS2
  • suitable also for older children to reinforce emergent and early skills
  • more than 60 different interactive activities, all focused on key skills and strategies
  • stories presented in varied and innovative ways: puppetry, storytellers, a play, a song, comparisons of traditional and modern versions and more!
  • ideal for whole class, group, and individual use
  • many “layers” in every activity, so that children can return many times and keep meeting new examples
  • audio support and continual feedback throughout
  • hundreds of print-outs providing reinforcement and extension activities
  • balance of skills and creative/critical thinking

Text Level Work
Many activities draw on and extend children’s understanding of the story.

Children learn to:

  • read with careful attention to meaning
  • retell stories, identifying significant incidents in sequence
  • consider point of view
  • explore text structure

Sentence Level Work
Activities build children’s grammatical awareness and knowledge of sentence construction and punctuation.

Children learn to:

  • construct correct sentences; e.g. checking noun-verb agreement
  • use a variety of ways of presenting text; e.g. speech bubbles, captions
  • use a variety of sentence structures

Word Level Work
Every title includes activities that focus on:

  • phonemic awareness
  • phonics and spelling
  • word recognition
  • vocabulary

Top tips for using Inside Stories in the Literacy Hour:

  • for Shared Reading - connect your PC or Mac to a TV and use the story with the whole class. This is useful to see how much each child comprehends. Compare with the Big Book version of each title.
  • Independent Work for a small group or pair, eg. while you are teaching Guided Reading with one group, Inside Stories titles can give another group a variety of supports and challenges.
  • Word Level Work - there is phonics in every title, with spelling patterns and vocabulary development. (See Sounds Great! for a detailed phonics programme.
  • Assists Shared Writing - for some of the titles, a variety of different writing genre are shown. All titles have Copy Masters for the texts also.

 

The Titles

 

Click to view the titles in Inside Stories.

 

Free Correlation Chart


A free guide to linking Inside Stories to the Literacy Hour.

Inside Stories Set 1 Correlations
Download Now! (359kb)

 

 

Technical Specifications

 

A CD-ROM drive and soundcard are needed.

PC
• 486/Pentium or better
• 8MB RAM minimum, 16MB RAM preferred
• 20 MB free disk space
• Windows 3.1, 95, 98

Mac
• 040/PPC processor or better
• 8MB RAM minimum, 16MB RAM preferred
• 20MB free disk space

 


 

About Big Books

Big Books Year Packs
Foundation (P1) - Pack A
Foundation (P1) - Pack B
Foundation (P1) - Pack C
Year 1 (P2) - Pack A
Year 1 (P2) - Pack B
Year 2 (P3)
Year 3 (P4)
Year 4 (P5)
Year 5 (P6)
Year 6 (P7)

Wordless Big Books

Story Chest Big Books with CD-ROMs F-Y2 (P1-3)

KS1 Traditional Tale Anthology Big Books with CD-ROMs
KS1 E-Books (without sound
)
KS1 Activities (with sound)


KS2 Big Books with CD-ROMs
KS2 Myths and Fables Anthologies
KS2 Big Books with Anthology E-Books