Media-Enhanced Digital Books from Weigl Publishers {Review}

Weigl Publishers offers an impressive array of media-enhanced digital books for students in grades K-12.  A student can read the book themselves or they have the option to have the book read aloud to them as well as using other multi-media features that enhance the learning experience.  Once the digital content has been unlocked for a book, your student will have access to those multi-media features indefinitely.  This is not a subscription that will expire in a year.
Rachel was most excited about the book called Glaciers which is part of the Earth's Water series through Lightbox. It is intended for students in grades 3-6.  

The digital content for Glaciers is amazing.  Each page of the book shows symbols for the types of features that are available for it.  Here is a picture of all of the different symbols that could appear on a page. 

They include audio, video, an activity, weblink, slideshow, transparency, Google map, quiz, and key words.  These features add so much more to the content than just what is included in the book.
Here are some examples below.  This picture is of a map of glaciers around the world.  You can see on the left hand side of the page that this page includes audio, an activity, transparency, and Google maps.

The transparency features takes a plain map and glaciers all around it along with some identified featured glaciers that appear in the boxes around the map.  What happens when you click on one of these boxes?  You get a screen that shows an actual Google map of that specific glacier so you can zoom in and out or look all around it.  It is like you are visiting the actual glacier from your home!

Rachel loves the video features on the pages.  The graphics are great and the information is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand way.  Here is part of a video she watched of glacier crevasses.


There is also a quiz feature.  If the student has read the book it will be a very easy quiz.  Rachel thought it was actually a fun quiz to take.

The second book we reviewed is A Lion's World which is part of the Eye Discover series (www.eyediscover.com).  This book is a great non-fiction easy reader that is intended for students in grades K-2.



Because A Lion's World is intended for younger students, it does not contain as much media content as Glaciers does.  However it does have amazing videos of lions on each page.  Rachel's favorite was listening to and watching the lion roar.




Finally, the last book we reviewed was There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant by Helen Ketteman.  This book is an AV2 Fiction Readalong.  It has sound effects and can read the book aloud for the student.  This particular one is a really cute spin on the classic book by a similar title.  There Once Was a Cowpoke Who Swallowed an Ant is intended for students in grades K-2.



Weigl Publishers has done a great job with their media-enhanced books.  Rachel has learned a lot while reading and exploring the digital content of the Glaciers book.  She wants to get more of their books so we looked at their list of the Lightbox Elementary books.  My son Nicholas will be starting high school this fall so I think I will get him some of the Lightbox Secondary books.  



If you would like to read additional reviews about these books from Weigl Publishers from other members of the Homeschool Review Crew, please click on the banner below: