The Best Thing
 
 The Best Thing is a delightful, animated story for children in the Foundation Stage. Hop in the car and join the family on a fun day at the zoo. See and hear all of the animals… but what was the best thing? The simple story is carefully crafted to help children improve attention and develop their listening skills in a fun way. Using lots of repeated, rhythmic phrases and chronological language, this recount text has many opportunities for interaction. Children can respond to what they have seen and heard with comments, questions and actions. The Best Thing is carefully written to help you meet some of the early attainment targets in literacy. The repetitive, rhythmic style and clear, animated graphics will motivate and engage your pupils.  This is a storybook – but so much more. There is an on-screen version that can be accessed in many different ways, a full colour printed book, extra activities to use on the computer, a set of worksheets and off-computer activities along with lots of teaching tips and ideas.
The on-screen storybook ReadIt! storybooks can be used as a 'big book' on an interactive whiteboard or on networked or stand-alone computers for individual or small group work. Each story can be read at two levels… see either the full text or a simplified version, providing the support that less confident readers need to encourage them to read independently. The screens are clear and uncluttered and the language is familiar. The pages are easy and fun to navigate, with animation and full speech support. The extra support provided by the interactive features gives an added level of motivation for children to practice their reading skills. Access using switches, mouse, keyboard, touch screen or interactive whiteboard. There are options you can set to tailor the program to the learner's needs, for example you could set the background and text colour or adjust the speech output.  Additional resources A range of worksheets and educational games are included on the CD to help you provide opportunities for meaningful extension both on and away from the computer... for example, simple sequencing of events ("first", "next", "then"), matching exercises and even simple number work. The worksheets include Simple Counting 1 and 2, 1:1 Correspondence, Numbers, Making Sets, Flash Cards, Colouring Pages, Domino Game 1 and 2, Matching Game, Writing Numbers and Sequencing Cards.
  
The additional activities on the CD can be used with IntelliKeys, mouse, touch monitor or interactive whiteboard. They include:  Make your own animal picture
Make your own animal pictures with this easy to use game.
Match to Line Drawing
Matching exercises - match the animals from the story to line drawing. Complete with printable IntelliKeys overlay. Match to Silhouettes
Match the animals from the story to their silhouettes. Complete with printable IntelliKeys overlay. ReadIt! The Best Thing was developed by Ian Bean, winner of a Becta ICT in Practice Award for Inclusion. See other software from our ReadIt! Series Read the Guardian's review | 
