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9 Ways Boom Cards Can Support Your Amazing Readers

Learn more about Boom Cards in this post demonstrating all of the things you can do on Boom Learning to keep your kids engaged and reading with purpose.

Whether you’re planning ahead, need to keep a child busy, or just need a little review, Boom Cards are for you! In this post, I’d like to share how Boom Cards have made learning fun and meaningful for my readers in and out of the classroom. In this post, I’ll share nine key benefits I’ve discovered with using Boom Cards TM.

USING BOOM CARDS FOR SKILL REVIEW

One of the biggest benefits of Boom Cards TM is that they can help students practice and review specific skills. The slides are considered digital task cards, and one way students use them is by dragging and dropping objects, filling in the blank, or written responses. The example to the right helps the teacher see if students are able to identify the beginning sounds of word. Once the student has sorted all of the pictures, the answer are submitted for the teacher to get a score. These can also be used on Smartboards too, so the teacher can model prior to the student using them independently. This resource comes with 25 sorting mats to choose from, so your students get LOTS of practice.

Letter-Sound-Sorting-Mat-Boom-Cards

MODEL NEW SKILLS

9 Ways Boom Cards Can Support Your Amazing Readers

Another very helpful option for teachers is to use Boom Cards TM for modeling a specific skill. In the example above, the teacher can project the sorting mat and practice sorting each of the images by sound with students. (and this can also be done when you share your screen in Zoom meetings too). For the activity to the left, the teacher can teach his/her student the Concept of Word poem with pictures and model how we track print as we read. The teacher can also project these poems and use them for other activities too such as letter identification, capitalization rules, sightword recognition, and end punctuation.

The activity to the left is my Concept of Word Spring Edition Boom Cards. It has 12 poetry sets with a menu students can choose from for repeated reading and practice.

ORGANIZE YOUR LESSONS

This summer, I’ve been busy tutoring a student, and one of the things his grandmother was concerned about was the fact that he didn’t have a lot of books at home and with little siblings, she wasn’t sure whether things I’d send would be safe. Well, I decided that I’d try organizing his lessons on Boom. His reading level also made it challenging to find good fit books, so I played with Boom to see if I could make eBooks that he could read on his tablet.

9 Ways Boom Cards Can Support Your Amazing Readers
You can find other fun lessons on Boom Learning by searching Beginning Reader Audio Books and Activities.

With each lesson, I record the audio clips (mainly since I’m selling it as a lesson for other teachers, but also for him to have repeated exposure and practice). The deck is my plan. I start with the story we’re reading, follow with comprehension work, and end with word work which extends to games or other hands on things I have. They’ve worked like a dream, and he LOVES them which makes me so happy. I send a hard copy home that he can practice with his mom.

BOOM CARDS ARE FUN

Let’s face it! Parents are busy people, and there are times when it’s good to have easy things for kids to do. Boom Cards TM can provide just what parents need. If you’re just starting, you can simply look for free resources for your child to use. There are cards for many skills. THIS FREEBIE is a sample of my nursery rhymes COW bundle. Students read along with me as I read Humpty Dumpty and complete fun activities after. It’s one of MANY free resources you can try out.

USE BOOM CARDS FOR YOUR LITERACY STATIONS

Teachers normally work with small groups during the reading and math blocks of the day. One of the biggest challenges is what do the other kids do? Centers can take a long time to set up. If a teacher has access to iPads or laptops, then center set up is a matter of making the assignments! Each child can have up to 40 assignments in their queue. This means that teachers can have activities waiting in their library for assigning. Teachers can differentiate based on a child’s needs too, and since the activities are self grading, there is always accountability.

BOOM CARDS ARE SELF CHECKING

Teachers also have found that Boom Cards work well for assessing student learning. Decks can be set up with as few or as many cards as you like. If you need an assessment, you can create your assessments in Boom! The great thing for you and your students it that you get immediate feedback!

BOOM CARDS INTEGRATE WITH OTHER PLATFORMS

With distance learning a serious probability for the fall (at least some of the time), it’ll be important to learn how to prepare for Zoom lessons or Google Meet. With Boom Cards, you can easily share the Fast Pin link with students via Google classroom. Again, you’ll have that data to know your next steps too. The resource to the right is for the book, Stellaluna. It is a comprehension check set that includes questions (drag and drop), skill based slides, and written responses. Well, teachers can use these after a read aloud or to guide discussion with groups.

9 Ways Boom Cards Can Support Your Amazing Readers
Stellaluna is one a many book titles available in my Boom Learning store. Just search Book Companion Activities.

BOOK COMPANION BUNDLES

BOOM CARDS ARE EASY TO DIFFERENTIATE

9 Ways Boom Cards Can Support Your Amazing Readers
Social Stories for Special Education

Another great thing about Boom Cards are that you can use the platform in unique ways to address the needs of students with special needs or speech challenges. Last fall, my nephew who has autism also developed a thyroid condition meaning monthly bloodwork to monitor his levels. Well, that presented a HUGE challenge for him. So much so that he was sedated for the first two or three draws.

To help solve the problem, I worked with his special education teacher to create a few social stories using Boom Learning because he loves using his iPad. Well, this resource helped a bunch especially with his teacher videotaping her blood draw and how to handle it. Of course other topics have come up too including schedule changes, high school behavior, communicating emotions, and dealing with frustration. Here is the link to these resources for those who might want to check them out.

EASY TO USE ANYWHERE

The last great thing about Boom Cards TM is that kids can use them on any electronic device. If a parent has a cell phone, kids can do the activities on it. They also work on laptops and iPads too. Sometimes it’s tough for teachers to get a full class set of ipads to use. The adaptability helps teachers with this struggle.

USING DIGITAL RESOURCES ON YOUR ONE ON ONE DEVICES

TEACHING DEEP THINKING WITH MENTOR TEXTS

As you look ahead to the fall and planning for distance learning, I hope you’ll find Boom Cards TM as helpful as I have. Now is the time to get familiar with what’s available. You can start with the free account. You can try out a few of the decks. I encourage you to be selective as not all free resources are equal. Once your convinced (and I know you will be), you can either purchase the premium level membership or ask your school district to purchase it for you. If your district has Title One funding, you might ask about this purchase. I truly hope that you’ll enjoy using them.

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Hello and Welcome to the Comprehension Connection Blog!

I’m Carla, the author of Comprehension Connection. I’m a recently retired Literacy Coach and TPT author. I’m a Wife to a great guy, Mom to two grown children and two fur babies. I’m a Virginia Blogger, a Travel Lover, a Coffee Drinker, and a Gal who loves All Things Techie.

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