Wonderopolis

Wonderopolis® is an award-winning online resource offering daily informational text to students and families (kindergarten through eighth grade).   Each Wonder of the Day ® is designed to help students find learning moments in everyday life. Each day, Wonderopolis explores a new question that provides information for students and encourages them to continue wondering by asking new questions and exploring related wonders.

Check out the quick tour of Wonderopolis.org below to learn more about the features of the site:

Wonderopolis provides material and resources to support your work with students. Each Wonder of the Day provides relevant, nonfiction text for students to read. The Wonder can be printed or read directly from a computer or tablet. This provides a great opportunity to practice literacy strategies, such as paired reading or vocabulary, with content in which the student is interested. If the Wonder of the Day does not interest the student you are working with, he can search for Wonders by topic to find one that is more appealing to him. Wonders can also be searched by topic based on what the student is learning in class.

If the passage becomes too difficult for children to read on their own, a “Listen” button is available to hear the text read aloud. The text will be highlighted for students as it is read, allowing the students to follow along. Encourage students to follow along as the text is read and focus on the words that they do not know. As a volunteer, you can also read the text to the student and move your finger across the words as you read them. Be sure to stop periodically and ask questions about what was read to ensure that the students are staying focused on the passage.

The “Have you ever wondered…” section includes questions that you can ask students to help them predict what they will learn as they read the passage. Discussing these questions in advance can also increase comprehension by helping students focus while they are reading the passage. Encourage students to think about what other questions they might be able to find answers to as they read the passage. After reading each Wonder, students can test their knowledge by taking a quick, three- question quiz. The quiz can be accessed by clicking the “Test Your Knowledge” link on the right side of the Wonder or the “Did You Get It?” link at the end of the Wonder. They can also reflect back on the questions they reviewed before reading. Were their questions answered? Were their predictions correct? Each Wonder also offers an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. Use the strategies from the vocabulary module to help guide this instruction.   Students can click on a highlighted word in the text or use the “Wonder Words” section to the right of the Wonder to explore definitions. The “Wonder Words” provide a vocabulary list complete with definitions and a Wonder Word Challenge to check understanding.