04 Apr PGTPL Database Spotlight: Scholastic GO!®
As the school year winds down, children and their families are working hard to wrap up final projects in anticipation of summer. However, the learning doesn’t have to stop there! Whether you’re in need of credible articles for an important assignment, planning homeschool lessons, or you want to search for your favorite subjects, Scholastic GO!® is an excellent resource for children, teachers, and parents. You can access this database at the library through a public computer, or at home with your library card number.
Scholastic GO!® is designed for children, providing credible, accurate, reliable content on almost every core-curricula subject, Scholastic GO!® offers endless resources for research in a multitude of media. Explore nonfiction texts, world newspapers, videos and more with this easy-to-navigate digital resource designed to strengthen content knowledge, vocabulary, and core proficiency skills.
(Source: Scholastic GO!®)
Scholastic GO!® Features
Search
To conduct a Search of the entire Scholastic GO! product, simply type a word or words into the Search box that appears in the center of the Home page or at the top of every page within the product; then click the magnifying-glass icon or “Enter.” Once you have entered your term(s) and clicked “Search,” or pressed “Enter,” Scholastic GO!’s powerful search engine will search the entire database collection of more than 115,000 articles as well as a comprehensive collection of media and websites. Here is an example of searching the term “Eclipse”:
Dictionaries
Clicking on “Dictionaries” allows you to search and browse the contents of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition and The American Heritage® Student Dictionary. Both dictionaries include audio pronunciations for all words contained in the dictionary. After locating a word and its definition, click the speaker icon to the left of the word. This will activate the audio pronunciation feature and continue to read aloud the entire definition. Here is an example of searching the term “Tornado” through the dictionary feature:
GO Tube Videos
“GO Tube” videos are an interesting and lively way to spark interest in specific research topics. Each video focuses on one topic and features stunning photography and a narrative with age-appropriate content. Clicking on the labeled GO Tube icon or accessing via the Menu icon brings up a visual browse of the product’s entire GO Tube collection. Here is an example of the library of videos:
World News
The World News offers a searchable database of URL addresses for news around the world. You may access “World News” by clicking the labeled icon in the blue bar at the top of every page in the product or via the Menu icon. This action will generate a page with a dropdown menu of countries and international organizations. (The default for the list is the United States of America.) Each link contains the name of the news outlet, its URL address, the frequency of its publication, the type of outlet it is (general interest, business, and so on), and the language or languages of the publication. Click on the news outlet’s title to go directly to the news site.
Atlas
The Atlas includes geopolitical maps of the world, the continents, every country, every U.S. and Australian state, every Canadian province, many regions, the oceans, scores of cities, and hundreds of specialized historical, thematic, and exploration maps. All maps include clearly labeled links to Scholastic GO! articles below the map to the left. The articles carry a reading-level icon.
Librarian & Educator Resources
Scholastic GO!® also offers lesson plans and downloadables, as well as resources for professional development, teaching strategies, information literacy, and other key education topics. To access these resources, navigate to: https://go.scholastic.com/librarians-and-educators.html
Interested to learn more about what more you can do with your PGTPL library card? Visit our website at https://www.plainfieldlibrary.net/ to access a variety of library apps, eBooks and eAudiobooks, online databases, and the Evergreen catalog.
Written by Ryan F., Youth Services Library Assistant
