Review: Knowonder Magazine on Teachers Pay Teachers

The October 2009 issue of Knowonder Magazine is a free download available on Teachers Pay Teachers. Knowonder is a free children’s magazine published in Utah and specializing in short stories for children to enjoy. The magazine’s mission is to promote literacy by making it easier to access. Knowonder’s monthly magazine contains stories for every day of the month.

The benefit this free download has for students can be achieved in the classroom or in the home. Because stories are short – no more than two manageable magazine pages – children are able to enjoy the benefits of reading or being read stories without being burdened by a task that seems intimidatingly long. Authors of these stories are both kids and adults, and these authors represent voices from across the globe. One significant benefit of the worldwide pool of authors is the many cultures and backgrounds represented in these stories, making the variety of topic and theme much richer.

Knowonder supports its mission to promote literacy and a daily reading habit by providing a lot of new and interesting content in one accessible format. By reading stories written by children and adults from around the world, children who read Knowonder Magazine are exposed to new cultures, perspectives, and underlying assumptions about society and the world. The magazine is structured so that stories could be read daily as recommended, or teachers and instructors could select specific stories to become the focal point(s) of lessons and class discussions. Parents could easily become involved, because the “work” of using Knowinder is simply to read aloud, or to have the child read. In other sections are full-color pages containing art projects submitted by readers from around the globe, as well as pen-and-paper activities like crosswords and mazes for kids. The magazine also contains content geared toward adults, including projects, columns about parenting, and recipes.

Knowonder Magazine is a tremendous resource for teachers, parents, and others who are interested in literacy development in children. One thing that users would need to keep in mind is that the magazine is delivered electronically and the file is 132 pages long, which may make printing the full magazine undesirable or even unfeasible for some users.

You can download your own copy of an issue of Knowonder Magazine here.

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- The Writing Prompts Workbook: Grades 1-2

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- Third Grade Writing Prompts for Holidays

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- 50 Writing Prompts for Homeschoolers (free)

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