Reading and Language

http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/

The PBS website concerning "reading and language" is a fantastic website for assisting young children with their reading and language development. The site is aimed more at the parents rather than teachers or children which is very beneficial because young children spend more time at home with their parents than teachers in most cases. The website's main goal is to help parents "Learn how children become readers and writers and how YOU can help them develop by talking, reading, and writing every day." (PBS website)
The first thing that stuck out most for me was the tool bar to select the "appropriate age" exercises for your respective child. The parent has six options to choose from ranging from babies up to second and third graders. The tool bar is very helpful because not only is it very obvious to locate and easy to navigate, but it takes the guess work away from a parent who might not understand which material is appropriate for their child. Once a parent has selected their appropriate age group, the website takes you to another page completely dedicated to helping your child become a better reader.
The website also offers many "featured articles" aimed at assisting parents with the development of their child's reading potential. The three featured articles today concern "How to Create a Literate Home" (PBS website), "Car Talk" (PBS website), and "Raising a Child With a Learning Disability: A Mother's Story." (PBS website) The articles are not only diverse, as you can see here, but also change so as to constantly give new information concerning your child's reading ability. The website also offers a link to view past articles submitted to the site.
The website offers a tool called a "Bookfinder" which allows you to insert a particular age group, book theme, and book type (read aloud or read to self) into a search engine and find an appropriate book for that days lesson. This not only keeps the work interesting for children, but it also allows the parents to utilize different activities to develop a well-rounded reading regimen for their child. For example, one day the parent might want to only have the child read to themselves without their assistance. All the parent has to do is input the right criteria and they will have many different options to choose from.
Like many of the other reading websites for children's literacy development, the PBS website also offers many games and activities for their child. The one difference I noticed about this website compared to others is that it also offers birthday games, tips for healthy living, and tv programs all aimed at making your child's life better. I love that the website recognizes not only that reading development is fundamentally important, but healthy living is as well. The website also offers other fun items as well. You can download documentaries and independent films to you itunes. The site offers a Spanish version for not only strictly Spanish speakers, but for bilingual speakers looking to assist their child with bilingualism. You can also add "apps" to your phone for a more rounded learning experience.
Overall, I would recommend this website to every parent or teacher who wants to find new ways to encourage their child's reading. The site offers everything from online advice, to articles about other people's experiences with reading development. You can search for age appropriate books of all types. The site offers fun games and activities to prevent boredom on behalf of your child. You not only have access to many games for reading development, but also games to make a child's personal life more enjoyable as well. The site also offers a Spanish version of itself, downloads for itunes, and apps all in the interest of making a child's learning experience as enriched as possible.

-James W. Jarvis


http://www.abcya.com/alphabet_matching_game.htm
http://www.abcya.com/

This website is wonderful for children to engage in games that are meaningful for the skills used in school to be successful. The website has loads of educational content for elementary school-aged children. The acbya website is great for teachers and parents to get involved in guiding and helping their children with their reading and language. The website offers many activities and games for the children. Some of the activities and games offered for the children relate to phonemic awareness.
The website can be beneficial to the children in their literacy development including phonemic awareness. For example, the kid’s alphabet match game can help children with the beginning and ends of sounds or substitutions.
The teacher can guide the children with some of the phonemic awareness games provided in this website. For example, in the storybook game a teacher can create games that go along with the stories that involve the entire class. A game can be interactive and fun for children while learning about phonemic awareness.
Overall, the website is beneficial for elementary school-aged children to learn what phonemic awareness is and how children can use this website at home or school to learn rhyming, syllable segmentation, isolation, blending, etc.

-Lysandra Garcia