READING

Reading is like baseball, swimming or gymnastics. The more you do it, the better you get. It’s like a sport in other ways, too--you can challenge friends and family to play word games and solve puzzles you find in books. Reading can be fun--sort of like taking a trip. That’s because books are full of real and make-believe adventures. To learn more, use the direct links on The Times’ Launch Point Web site. https://ukobiw.net/launchpoint/

LEVEL 1

Welcome to Bear Country--Kody’s Beary Scary Story: Help Kody the bear decide what to do next in this interactive online story. https://www.public.usit.net/johncg/Kody/KodyPage.HTML

Children’s Storybooks Online: An assortment of illustrated stories, including an animated alphabet book. Read stories like “Who Did Patrick’s Homework?” “Animals You Can See at the Zoo” and “The Littlest Knight.” https://www.magickeys.com/books/index.html

Fake Out! The Definition Guessing Game: Build your vocabulary by trying these weekly games. Guess the definitions to unusual words, and send in your own fake definitions for next week’s game. https://www.eduplace.com/hmco/school/dictionary/index.html

LEVEL 2

Escape Your Disaster--Adventure Island: Imagine you’re boating with your family and there is a terrible storm. A wave tosses you overboard. What do you do next? This interactive story puts you in the center of the action as you figure out your own rescue. https://www.planetzoom.com/eyd/eyd.htm

The Global Campfire: Be part of a never-ending story. Choose one of the continuing stories (adventure, family relationship, mystery, science fiction), and read what has been created from contributors from all over. Then submit your own paragraph to add another twist in the plot. https://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/fl/pcto/campfire.html

Wacky Web Tales: Select nouns, verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech to fill in the blanks and create funny stories. There are more than 150 stories to try, and you can even submit your own tale to add to the collection. https://www.hmco.com/hmco/school/tales/

LEVEL 3

American Literary Classics--a Chapter a Day: Every day, this site posts a new chapter to a famous book. Besides making your way through the classics, you can discuss different literary works with others by e-mailing your thoughts to the Readers Discussion Room. https://www.americanliterature.com/YR/index.html

Vocabulary University: Get ready for the SAT by building your vocabulary. Try different word puzzles and hit the “SUBMIT” button at the bottom of the page to check your answers. https://www.vocabulary.com/

Genentech Mystery--The Blackout Mystery: Read the story and see if you can find the clues necessary to solve this biological mystery. https://www.gene.com/ae/tbs/

Launch Point is produced by the UC Irvine department of education, which reviews each site for appropriateness and quality. Even so, parents should supervise their children’s use of the Internet. This week’s column was designed by Anna Manring and Stan Woo-Sam.

EXPLORER’S QUEST

The answer to this Internet quiz can be found in the sites at right.

With what did the “The Littlest Knight” fill the cup and solve the dragon’s riddle?

Clue: See Children’s Storybooks Online

Tell Us What You Want to Know

Got a paper or project coming up? Just curious about something? Send us a topic, and we’ll consider it for a future Launch Point column. Write to us at The Times Orange County, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. E-mail us at [email protected] or leave a phone message at (714) 966-4550.

Answer to last week’s Quest:

The Celts used turnips to make the first jack-o’-lanterns.