International Reading Association Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #2 Exploration

Effective Literacy Website #2 Exploration

Carmerida Yolanda Nanpei

STARFALL  http://starfall.com/

Starfall is a free online website that help teach millions of students to read and inspire the love of learning through exploration. Starfall is a student friendly website that is bright and colorful, easy to navigate and find content and special features. This learning website is catered to children K-3, specializing in reading, phonics, and math educational games, books, songs, and much more. The activities  are research-based and align with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The website uses a phonic based learning system.  It offers both fun online games and activities as well as resources that can be printed.

Some of the things that Starfall emphasizes are exploration, play and positive encouragement.  This fun and exciting online learning too encourages children to become confident and motivated to learn.  There are so many electronic entertainment out there and the beauty of Starfall is that while students are having fun, they are learning too.  This website reaches out to all types of learners with different skill levels.  This program is widely used for students that are homeschooled, has learning disabilities and English Language Learners.

International Reading Association (IRA) Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #1 Exploration

International Reading Association (IRA) Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #1 Exploration

Carmerida Y. Nanpei

READING ROCKETS https://www.readingrockets.org/

      The first website that I'm going to choose that has impact on literacy is Reading Rockets. (https://www.readingrockets.org) This is a website that I use often and I chose this website because it offers a lot of resources that helps struggling readers. It offers information and resources explaining how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle. The resources help readers build phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, which are the 5 essential skills a good reader must have. Reading Rockets make learning to read or reading interesting and engaging for kids.  There many useful resources there that is not only accessible to teachers but also for parents at home. 

      In addition to all the information and resources available for students, Reading Rockets also offer opportunities for teacher to take online courses on how to teach reading, classroom strategies, as well as reading tips for parents I believe that this is one of the best online learning websites that make huge impact on literacy and writing.

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

Tillie R. Blas

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

 

ReadWriteThink (http://www.readwritethink.org) is a free website for parents, teachers and students K-12. The mission of ReadWriteThink is to provide teachers, parents, and after school professionals access to quality practices in reading and language arts instruction. All of the content is reviewed and approved by literacy experts who understand what works for our students, parents and teachers. The content itself is created by educators who are passionate about literacy learning. It is great to know that the development of this site was done by educators who have the same passion that we have for providing resources needed towards educating our students.

Every lesson is aligned with IRA/NCTE standards and state standards for English Language Arts. If applicable it is also aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Navigating through the website to find information can be done with ease, a plus for busy educators. Books are presented in various ways such as through a read aloud which would be useful for our struggling readers as well as our ELL students. While students are deciding on the topic of their research projects, they will be able to develop an outline for their project. As an added feature, students will be able to save their work when not completed. They will be able to return to their interactive session and continue work when ready. When developing an acrostic poem, the student is able to scroll over a letter that they may have trouble finding a word for and will be provided word examples.

As I reviewed the resources available, I became more and more excited with the variety that is afforded to educators, parents, and students. TalentLMS has provided resources to make a student’s lesson more exciting and less intimidating. It has provided a venue for teachers to create work that is aligned with their unit of study and last but not least it provides resources for parents to assist their children.

Effective Literacy Website # 3

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website#3

Between the Lions is a great literacy website that offers different reading and video collections for any grade level. There are available resources and activities for all subjects. By navigating through this site, you can click on any tabs to learn how deliver a lesson on different subjects and view videos that will enhance student's learning.

There are interactive games and activities using phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension. In addition to these interactive games and activates, there are also literature resources for students where they could explore the main themes of written language. Teachers can find resources for any grade level lesson plans and videos, games and activities that is aligned to the state and national standards. Overall, this is a great literacy website because it offers different features that will enhance students at any grade level.

IRA Effective Literacy Website #2: Education World

WWW.EDUCATIONWORLD.COM  Education World is an online resource for teachers and administrators. It is corporate funded and updated daily. It is not an exclusively literacy focused website but there are so many features that promote literacy including blogs, lesson plans and printables. The site also offers online courses, many in literacy education.

There are a couple of sections that I am especially excited to use with my students. One is a section with reading games that cover all grade levels and literacy skills: word finder, synonym toast, flash cards, grammar gorillas, spelling game, and more. I have access to tablets and laptops for my students so I can allow them to play these games if they finish their work early or as good behavior rewards.

Another one of my favorite features is the section with news articles that are relevant and interesting to students. The lesson plans include English standards, vocabulary, anticipatory sets, articles, worksheets and answers, and follow up activities. There are articles on robots, lizards, farming, the military, Martin Luther King Jr., basketball, school, animals, dinosaurs, technology, and so many more. Every article crossed over multiple subjects and can be expanded or streamlined to whatever each teacher needs. Here is an example of one of these news article lesson plans: https://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/newsforyou/newsforyou148.shtml

International Reading Association Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Websites #2 Exploration

Reading Rockets is a website designed to help young kids learn how to read and shows various ways on how adults can help. Reading Rockets works with PBS to provide resources for teachers and parents to help their children with reading and to also help struggling readers. On the website you will also find articles on teaching reading, video interviews with popular authors, research on classroom strategies, and videos to help parents. The videos provided also come in several languages so that it can be helpful to anyone around the world.

Teachers can use this website as an additional professional development resource. Reading Rockets provides a self-paced course called Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing. It is designed for K-3rd Grade teachers. It provides information and strategies to help students become better readers and writers.

Reading Rockets also uses PBS programs. They have shows that help parents and teachers help their children to become better readers. The Reading Rockets PBS Series is linked below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Vk2kLPDi0&list=PLP5w4Q3UaOiXHD2z5bnwv6zXJ-tkie4oD

Overall, I really enjoy this website and find it to be a really helpful resource. I especially love the videos and PBS series. I will continue to use this website for additional tips and strategies for my struggling students.

IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website #2

The goal of KidLit TV is to get children interested in reading by offering information about different authors that children may find appealing. KidLit TV provides videos of author interviews and book trailers that students can watch, as well as crafts and activities related to different stories that teachers can use in the classroom. Users can type a book title into the search bar to find activities, read-alouds, and more.

Children can watch Ready Set Draw and be inspired by illustrators from children’s literature. The speakers also give step-by-step instructions so children can follow along and create their own illustrations. This can encourage children to want to read more books to learn about what they can draw next. It may even encourage them to come up with creative characters and scenes for a story of their own.

Another show, Past Present: Giving Past Stories New Life, seems more suited for older children or even teachers and other authors. This show gives readers the opportunity to learn about non-fiction and compare their own experiences with people from the past. This can get readers to relate to the characters in non-fiction stories, making it more enjoyable for the readers.

There is also KidLit Radio, where podcasts can be downloaded to listen to later. This is a great resource for parents and teachers because they can download read-alouds and talk shows and play it in the car, in the classroom, and straight from their phones. This is also great for children because they can listen to stories

Children today enjoy going online and watching videos of almost anything. With this website, children can be exposed to more stories and be encouraged to read more books. Parents and teachers will have access to activities and crafts for their children, as well as be able to download podcasts to listen to on-the-go.

IRA Effective Literacy Website #3 Reading Bear

Reading Bear (http://www.readingbear.org/) is a project of www.watchknowlearn.org. It is one of the first free, online programs to teach beginning readers vocabulary and concepts. It systematically introduces all the main phonetic patterns of written English. This website uses innovative rich media. There are about 50 presentations, covering even more phonics principles and illustrating over 1,200 vocabulary items. In addition, there are available flashcards in PDF form.

Presentations are available in seven different versions.  Children are introduced to one or few relatable phonics rules in each presentation via playable videos or interactive slide shows. The website sounds out words slowly and quickly. It also blends the words slowly and then after an optional prompt, words are blended quickly. Interestingly, the corresponding letters are highlighted as the words are highlighted.

Furthermore, there are available pictures displayed to illustrate the words and a video to illustrate the sentences. Phonics principles and words are introduced as well as vocabulary. In addition, the website displays many features. You can click on the button that says, “First learn the sounds.” From there, it takes you to available resources that show you how to teach your child the sounds. It even provides videos for the alphabet songs. It even shows the steps any parent can follow while teaching their children with all the required resources available. For each sound and letter, there is an online quiz for the child to take after learning about the sounds. This website is a great teaching and learning tool, especially for beginning readers.

IRA Effective Literacy Website #2 Details

StoryPlace (https://www.storyplace.org) is a free, digital learning library especially designed for children. It provides children with the virtual experience of going to the Library and participating in the same types of activities the Library offers at its physical locations. It has been newly redesigned to present stories and activities in a format compatible with desktop and mobile devices. The site also includes early literacy information for parents and caregivers. It is even available in two languages: English and Spanish.

 Children have the opportunity to select different themes that they like to begin their exploration of this site. It features different icons for children to select for their interest. There is an animal theme icon, babies theme icon, fish theme icon, gorilla theme icon, color theme icon, music theme icon, and many others. When clicked on these icons, it will take you to selected readings and activities based on the icon/theme. There is an audio as well as a video for each story. When clicked on the story of interest, the audio plays so that children can listen to it while watching animations of the story. Interestingly, there are games for each of the stories you may select on this website. In general, there are free online games, videos, stories, activities, reading lists, and even a take-home activity for each selected story.

Story Place has been recognized numerous times over the past 15 years as a resource for early literacy activities for children. To name a few, it has been chosen by the American Library Association as a great web Site for kids. Additionally, it has won the Editor’s Choice Awards and received an A+ rating by Education World as outstanding site for pre-kindergarten through 2^nd grade.