Community reviews for Storyline Online

I think this is a nice site, but mainly for a leisure activity. I think if there were questions with the stories to increase engagement it would be a plus.

This resource gives children more chances to be read to, and interact with quality literature. It is beneficial in that it works well when teachers have limited time to read to individual children, and when particular children need more time listening to quality literature.

My overall opinion about Storyline Online as a teaching tool is that it's a great read aloud tool. It can be used in whole group, small group, or individual settings to support ELL students and low literacy students. I like that each video has a different actor or actress reading books to students. It would be great if there were additional resources to go along with each of the readings like basic comprehension questions for students who struggle with reading fluency.

I use this website as a modern version of a listening center or books on tape. My classroom is full of diverse learners and I am always looking for a way to excite my students about reading. I supplement the website using activities of my own that match the state's curriculum. This gives the students multiple chances to practice the skills that I have have taught during our whole group lessons. As educators, we know that if we want students to be better readers, they have to hear good reading and practice reading. By hearing fluent reading, students will increase their story comprehension and be able to replicate it in their own reading. This website is great for students in this respect. I would recommend some additions to the website to make it stronger. At the bottom of the screen, there is an activity guide available for teachers. This is a PDF document with information about the reader and ideas for the classroom. If there were PDF documents that were directly linked to the stories that aligned to the Common Core curriculum, the website would have more balance. Without supportive resources, the students are almost in a passive state and the website only acts as a substitution to a live read aloud. The website would definitely be better if all of the links work. The developers of the website should go through and update the links on their website. Overall, I like the website for my classroom but wish there was more consistency and curriculum support.

This site has great potential, however, even though these are SAG actors, some of them are not the best at reading aloud, and many of them are not people that the students even know, therefore it just turns into some adult they don't know reading a book on a screen. The use of animations when showing illustrations is useful, but overall, I think unless the students know an actor they would get more out of the teacher reading the book than via this website.

This site is wonderful for a change of pace, to introduce a unit, or when you need a couple of minutes to get things in order. A few of the names are not as notable to students, but the stories remain popular.

I really like this website. The kids love the stories and the change is nice in atmosphere. They get very excited and really enjoy the books.They do have some wonderful books to chose from. They have a lot of the biggest books that students love. It would be nice if they would add some new books. That is my biggest issue with the site.

Even if students are unaware who the actor is they think it is very cool that the person is an actor. I feel like this keep the students more engaged. The actor read slowly and clearly and shows pictures to go along with the story. When I first introduced this site some of my students said, "Miss Jeffers were watching a movie!" There is a nice varieties of books to choose from.

This is a quality teaching tool that, because the narrations are read by professional actors, models great fluency. Each and every story is engaging and is an experience in and of itself. Since I've started using it several years ago, it has switched up some, but not all, of its selection. It'd be great to see even more and different books to choose from. This is addressed briefly in the FAQ and seems to be dependent on funding, understandably so. Additionally in the FAQ there are things like how to bookmark a preferred media player and how to turn on the Closed Captioning.

I like that you can just go in and choose a book and go. I also like the possibilities of building a lesson with a book. The ONLY downfall with this site is that the videos are housed on a 3rd party site and are blocked in my district. We can override the system, but students cannot do so independently.