Fun Literacy Websites for Kids

1. Paw Park- Kangaroo Confusion Game

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark/pawpark.html

The link I will be evaluating for blog 3 will be the paw park game on the Gamer Goo website. Basically how this game works is that you have different kangaroos wearing t-shirts bearing capitalized and lower cased letters. The objective of the game is to have the capital form of the letter match with its lower case counterpart, or vice-versa. So at the start of the game, you are given a kangaroo with a letter on its shirt and you have to match it with the correct lower or capital letter. You are given four different answer choices to choose from and you must choose the right one to advance. This is a type of game that helps English language learners learn the alphabet and the lower and capital forms of the letters. It is a great way to practice recognizing the letters and it also sounds out the letter for the learner to hear, so they know how to properly say the letter. The game also provides colorful, playful images that are fun, but appear to be geared more towards children starting to learn their first language. There is also music that is cheerful and gives a fun atmosphere, and a narrator that helps explain the rules of the game and gives guidance. It is definitely a fun way to learn the alphabet while getting good practice, so it is a worthy try for anyone starting to learn the English Language. This is one of many games that English Language Learners can play to get the practice they need while having fun play them. Included in this game are word/letter recognition, pronunciation, and introduction to spelling and writing.

Evaluated by Samuel Martinez

2. Giggle Poetry: The #1 Fun Poetry Site for Kids on the Web

http://www.gigglepoetry.com

I remember growing up and in school, I would always here my friends talk about how they didn't like poetry because it was so hard! I can recall to my first few poem assignments back in elementary school. We did a Japanese haiku poem sometime during 4th or 5th grade and I thought it was a lot of fun! But some of my other friends didn't... Even when I was taking literature classes here at UT, I would hear my fellow peers talk about how they didn't like poetry either!

Giggle poetry is a nice site for children who are learning to write poems and want to publish something online. They offer a HUGE selection of student-written poems from all grade levels in elementary school You have students from first grade to fifth grade submitting poems. I find this to be a good resource for other students to read poems and gain inspiration. Since they are written by students, ELL's and native English speakers will have that comprehensible input (i+1). They'll be able to identify more with what poems are about if they are the same age as the author.

The website is very easy to navigate and has THOUSANDS of poems – from many everyday topics like teachers and principals to excuses to school activities to homework and much more. All the topics can be easily related to students of all ages.

In addition, it has interviews with professional writers and poets where students can learn about what it's like to be a poet. What others' inspirations are and just information about their childhood experiences. There are also a lot of fun activities and games that do with poems. They have these fun things called fill-in-the-blank poems, where there is a poem with words missing and users can add in whatever words they like.

I think it's a great website to help upcoming poem writers. It provides a lot of information and examples on writing poems. Also, it's very colorful and cartoon oriented, so it caters to children of all ages.

Evaluated by Thaison Nguyen

Literary Games

Match beginning sounds

Paw Park: Sassy Seals: http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark3/pawpark3.html

Paw Park is a game site from GameGoo containing all different types of games and activities to help improve on or practice differnet aspects of literacy. What I like about this particular website is how it is geared directly toward children. There are bright colors, fun animals, animations, voices, etc. The game I am focusing on is called Sassy Seals. When you first click into the game, it starts right away stating a word. There is a dad seal and a son seal it looks like. The dad says a word. Next to them sits a huge teacup with five big fish on top. The whole point of this game is to match BEGINNING sounds of words. After the initial word is stated, the five fish then each state a word. Only one is the correct match, and begins with the same sound as the word the daddy seal gives. It is a little bit of a challenge, because they give some words that are similar, or even rhyme the initial word, but are not the correct answer. However, the dad is wearing a hat that says “Replay” so that the children are allowed to replay over and over the initial word that they must find a match for. Also, simply scrolling over any of the fish causes them to also repeat their words. The site is highly motivating, as it encourages kids to get a certain amount of fish in the cup. Each time they choose an answer, the little seal tosses a worm at the fish they chose. If the answer is incorrect, he says “Try Again” and nothing happens. But if the answer is correct, the blue fish turns a pretty orange and yellow color and drops into the cup. This gives kids a fun and obtainable goal. They are having fun and working on their literacy skills without even knowing it. I love that this really hope the children to focus on only the beginning sound. They improve not only their listening skills, but even their ability to sound out words themselves. They develop phonemic awareness, grasping the ability to sound out each and every part of a word, rather than just trying to memorize what a word looks like or guess how it sounds. When learning a new language or even developing a first language, it is critical to know how each and every letter sounds. This is something I constantly worked on with my tutee.

Evaluated by: Kayla Acosta

Spelling Bee

http://www.quia.com/pop/13123.html

This website in my honest opinion is not very good at all. This is a simple game that does not have much depth to it. A child will sit at his desk and chose between two words to see which one is spelled correctly and if the child gets the answer correct he is only awarded a point. The website has nothing to keep the child’s attention and is very dull. If you really want to take your time to become a better speller there are much better ways, but this way is definitely not the best. If a teacher would like to use this website to his or her advantage they would have to do a lot of setting up and this might not be worth their time. Also I did not see any way of choosing a difficulty level which would seem pretty ridiculous if you are trying to improve your 1^st graders spelling skills. I do not like this website at all and I do not recommended using it.

Evaluated by: Michael Dang

http://www.ictgames.com/dinosaurwordsrepeat.html

This game is great. It helps with pronunciation and reading. You have to match the word you have heard to the corresponding word underneath the egg. I think boys especially would respond positively to this game because the graphics are dinosaurs and eggs. I think this game, however, is very minimalist and only requires two aspects of language learning. This game will be very beneficial to phonology though. It is a great pedagogical tool for listening and reading!

Evaluated by: Kater Hoffner

Spelling City

http://www.spellingcity.com/

Practice spelling the words in your word bank.

The objective of the Spelling City is to improve on spelling skills. I found that the Spelling City website not only improves spelling, but reinforces a student’s understanding of the word as well. The website creates games for the student to play that involve synonyms, antonyms, and sentence creation which help the student with semantics and really grasping the concept. Through word scrambles, word searches, hang man, and other related activities, the students are presented with the word in several ways, letting them explore the proper arrangement of the letters.

This is a valuable resource for students, parents, and teachers because it allows them to input their own spelling words without limiting them to activities the teacher has provided. Students are able to work at their own pace which provides a less threatening environment because students can practice their semantics, sentence structure, and reinforce their spelling in a more autonomous atmosphere—something that is always great for ELLs.

Evaluated by: Karynna Garcia

Spelling Activities

Our group visited websites that help students with spelling.

1. Spelling City
www.spellingcity.com


Spelling city can be used for any age group. I think it could be very useful when studying for a spelling test. The site will test a student after they enter their spelling words. During the test they can click a button and the computer will say the word by itself and in a sentence. I think that is very helpful because the student will know how the word sounds and how to use it in a sentence. There is also a place on the website that will help you learn the words. It will say each letter of the word and then the word in a sentence. This technique can be helpful when a student is having trouble spelling certain words. The website also has a link for activities and games. All the activities and games can be played with the student’s spelling words. I really like this website because I use to have trouble spelling words. I would have found it fun and interesting to play games with my spelling words instead of writing them and trying to memorize them. This website is also very useful because any student in any grade can use it. It is all centered on the student’s spelling words. I would recommend this website to any student especially to a student who is struggling with spelling

Evaluated by: Ashley Chumchal

2. a. Academic Skill Builders: Spelling Bee
www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/games/spelling-bees/

This website has many tools to use in all areas of a child’s learning. Academic Skill Builders are online educational video games that offer a powerful approach to learning basic math, language arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills.

The spelling activity the website has is great for individuals or multi-players. The website even gives you the NCTM standard strand in case a teacher wants to use it in her classroom for children who are working toward a specific goal. The standard for this game is: Spell correctly high-frequency and commonly misspelled words appropriate to grade level. The object of the game is for students to build beehives by correctly spelling the given computer-voiced words. Whoever builds the highest beehive in the time allowed wins. 1-4 players can play at once. The computer calls out a word and the students must choose the letters and spell it correctly, if they choose the wrong letter, the bee will not add it to the beehive. After an allotted amount of time, whoever has the most words wins. It then gives the students their statistics including their accuracy rate and any word they missed.

I think one of the best things about this activity is the children can play together or alone. The games on the website are also arcade type games which hold a child’s interest while teaching them things at the same time. The website offers numerous spelling games and other games in different areas of learning as well. The games are also research based so you know the children are getting the most out of their time playing the games. Teachers can bring this website into their classrooms with the confidence that their curriculum is being strengthened in regards to state standards. Addressing these standards, in turn, prepares students for the high-stakes, standardized tests that are ever present in elementary education.

The only problem I found with this game was you cannot choose a grade level for the words so using it with younger kids maybe a little difficult because the words are a little more advanced, probably aimed at 3rd grade.
**This was Calli’s first one but since I(Yire) put them all together late, she had to do it again. T.T But I(Yire) decided post both because she introduces her first activity very well.

2. b. Everyday Spelling
www.everydayspelling.com

Everyday Spelling is a website created by the book publisher, Pearson. The website is an online workplace for teachers, parents, and students. The publishers, Pearson Scott Foresman's mission is to provide the very best educational materials in the world. The user can choose a spelling list from grade 1 to grade 8. It is also nice that the website offers different ways of downloading the lists so that it will be compatible for your computer. Under each grade you can find the 25 most frequently misspelled words, audiotape scripts, and spelling strategies. The audiotape scripts have several different lessons under each category. This could help students who are ELLs to hear the words along with seeing them. All of the tips the website provides are backed by research which means they should be useful in the classroom. The only downside I saw for the website is it seems to be more focused on teachers and parents rather than the children. If it had some games for children centered on the spelling words, it would be more useful to the children.
Evaluated by: Callista Young

3. Kids Spell
http://www.kidsspell.com/

Kidsspell.com is a great resource for teaching spelling. It is absolutely free and provides fun ways to improve students spelling. The activities provided will significantly improve student’s ability to learn and retain spelling words. The website provides over six thousand words to practice so it is very useful for many different students depending on the level they are at. You cans select from one of the spelling lists provided or you can create your own. Custom spelling lists can be saved and linked to and from a classroom website. This is great and convenient for teachers. This list can then be used with one or more students to practice current spelling words. All the games and activities on this website will use your own spelling list, reinforcing what is being taught in the classroom. Or you can utilize the compiled series of over four hundred spelling lists. These lists begin with lesson one which is age appropriate for ages six or seven and progress through lesson four hundred and twelve which progress to ages fifteen to eighteen years old. There are numerous activities that if all competing the 412 lessons will take approximately ten years if completed at a pace of one per week. The spelling games have been designed to improve spelling abilities in a fun engaging way that students will love.
Evaluated by: Jennifer Porton

4. Stellar Speller
http://www.candlelightstories.com/games/stellar-speller/

This website helps students with first grade level spelling. There is a fun game that allows them to guess and spell the name of the picture. When the player guesses wrong or uses hints, he does not get any points that raise the power. He is allowed to use hint that reveals the letter one at a time. After clicking the hint once, the first letter is shown. If he keeps clicking, more letters are written. When I get frustrated with certain words, hints help me. This website is a stress-free game website.  After going through once, the player can do it over again and again until he becomes familiar with all the words. Even though there are only little more than 25words, this website can be used for a one-time class activity. This could be a fun activity where a teacher pull out and play with students or test them. And also a good application for this website would be teachers making an activity similar to this website where they prepare pictures and students guess the word. By playing this type of spelling game, students will be more interested in learning because it is fun.
Evaluated by: Yire Lee

http://www.http://www.readwritethink.org/

The www.readwritethink.org/abc match is great for children in learning sounds, letters, matching skills, memory skills, pictures of different words, animals, etc. They can match a letter to a word like o for octopus or w for wagon. It is a very interactive game children can engage in by themselves as well as in groups or at home with parents. It is great that children can learn the alphabet letters on the abc match website. The website readwritethink.org offers links for teachers to create lessons for the children or look up lessons to have the children engage in using technology while learning to spell, read, write, etc. The parents are given resources as well after school resources on the website for their children in grades pre-kindergarten to grade 12. The website offers information about their standards, news, authors, communities, etc. Overall, the site is very resourceful and useful for children, parents, teachers, and our community to help children learn to read and learn the English language.

By : Lysandra Garcia

Activites and Games

http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/games/pawpark2/pawpark2.html
This website helps children with many skills such as spelling, vocabulary, and reading. Alphabetizing words is just one of many activities kids can play and learn. By showing them an example the first round shows children what is expected of them when they play this activity. They have a fun background with bright colors and an amusement park which will attract children. The bears are wearing yellow shirts with the word on them along with a picture so it can help children who work better with visuals along with the word underneath it. Then the child must alphabetize the bears from left to right and drag them into a cart that they will drive off in. It has fun graphics and sounds that will grab the child’s attention which is important for children’s games. I like this game because even if a child does not know the word the bear is wearing, when you move your mouse over it will say the word which also helps children with visual impairments. Also, the main website has levels that you can have you child play. It varies from beginner, intermediate, and advanced which is helpful for teachers and parents who have a variety of learning abilities. Because of the levels, I accept the other games even if they are little more advanced. Some of the games could have a better pronunciation person because it is hard understanding some of the words he/she might be saying. Other than that, this website is organized and well structured in dealing with children’s games and what they want to teach. Students will be able to try a variety of games that could teach them spelling, vocabulary, and reading.

By:Courtney Kagan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
This is a great interactive website for students. It provides reading, writing, and spelling and grammar sections. Inside each of these sections are links for games, reading activities, videos and quizzes that deal with each section. For example, the reading games that a student can play includes things like reading directions to get to a certain in place in so many steps. The child has to read the directions carefully to follow the steps correctly and win the game. These games provide children with fun ways that require them to read. In the read link there is important information about different types of reading, like newspapers, and advertisements, and more. In this tab students are able to read and gain knowledge about different types of literature and where people find readings. In each section there is a quiz link about what that section discussed, which is beneficial to students because they are able to summarize and solidify what they have learned. This website is a great tool for children and students who working on their reading, writing, spelling, and grammar skills, therefore it is a very good site for English language learners. This website provides literacy development activities for English language learners that help to develop their literacy skills. There are links for teachers and schools that have lesson plans and general education information on it.
By :Molly Rice

www.readwritethink.com
Although the requirements for the Word Family Sorts online activity may appear to be simple, this website provides students with both the understanding of rhyming and different vocabulary words as well. In this activity, students must identify "word families" where they are provided four words that have the same main vowel use but are structured differently. When each new word pops up, the student must be able to identify which "family" the word belongs based on its grammatical structure. While students are identifying each word's makeup, they also have the potential to learn new words, considering the activity provides up to 28 words per vowel. Although this activity may appear repetitive, this process promotes students to become accustomed to seeing the grammatical structure of various words and helps them to recognize why these words look and sound the same. In addition, students have the opportunity to practice this activity with each of the five vowels, which means the idea of word families is reiterated even more. I think it is a very helpful way for a student to become familiar with word structure and also potentially to learn new vocabulary. RWT: Word Family Sort
By: Melissa Berger

http://www.literacycenter.net/lessonview_en.php#This is a great site for ESL students to learn and practice their vocabulary, reading, writing, and comprehension skills. There are multiple activities for ESL to do for fun. A great way for students to practice reading skills is by clicking on the "Colors" tab and clicking on a color, and the name of that color pops up. This is an effective exercise because it is providing a picture to go along with the word so the student can apply the English name of the color and compare it to the their own language's name of that color; thus, they are learning that word with more effective instruction. To practice their writing skills, the "Writing" tab is effective for ESL. It teaches students how to write uppercase and lowercase letters of the English alphabet. For early English learners, there is a tab for "Uppercase letters" and "Lowercase letters" to look at the letter "A" or "a" to get familiar with it and remember their names, and there is a "Uppercase/lowercase" tab to compare and contrast the letters to show the difference. Using pictures, as stated above is affected for ESL students because it shows them the difference, and also helps with their comprehension skills in English. The "Words" tab is one of my favorite tabs for ESL students. First, it shows all the vowels of the alphabet, and the students are free to click on the words. Then, it has pictures of crayons, and the student can click on the color, then they must spell it out the English name of the color to work on their vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension skills. The "Word" tab exercises are designed to help students read words. Instead of teaching students that "o is for orange", the site shows students an "orange" or "cat." An exercise teachers can try is saying to the ESL student(s) “o-r-a-n-g-e spells orange”. This will help the teacher to later replace the first language word with a second language word for the same object. Also, teach the names of the numbers and then names of the colors so you are using the chunking technique, which in turn can give students confidence, a sense of achievement and help build self esteem. Then, celebrate when your child can read all the number words or all the color words. is also a "Shapes" tab to introduce ESL students to different shapes, encouraging recognition and comprehension. The site also familiarizes the students with numbers. Overall, this is a great site for ELLs and is strongly recommended for educator to refer to families and incorporate into their
By: Morgan Smith

Phonological Awareness

Phonological Awareness
Our group explored websites that have emphasis on phonological awareness. There are activities and games that children can do, and teachers and parents can utilize. I hope they are helpful to all of you guys!

1. Readinga-z
www.readinga-z.com/phonics/index.html

The website focuses all on phonological awareness and phonics. This program uses direct and explicit instructional strategies for teaching phonological awareness and phonics. Reading A-Z provides instructional resources for teaching the sounds and symbols of language and their relationships to one another using 30 phonological awareness lessons and 68 phonics lessons. The website is broken down into eight different sections: Phonological Awareness Lessons, Phonological Awareness Assessment, Phonics Lesson, Phonics Assessment, Phonogram Flashcards, Decodable Books, Read-Aloud Books, and Sound/Symbol Books. Each lesson provide teacher and parent many resources they can use with their kids. In the Phonological Awareness lesson children are taught to notice, differentiate, think about and manipulate sounds – from sounds of words to sounds of individual phonemes. Some of the things the lessons focus on are blend syllables; manipulate initial sounds, segment syllables and onset and rime. Phonological Awareness Assessment is where the children listen for, identify, discriminate, and produce sounds. The assessments cover rhyme, onset and rime and syllable awareness. The phonics lessons contain worksheets that focus on consonants, short vowels, and word families, blending of sounds, long vowels, open vowel, vowel digraphs and other vowel patterns. There are two phonics assessments available. One assessment focuses on the child’s ability to associate a sound with a given symbols which covers decoding simple CVC words. The second one focuses on the child’s ability to decode nonsense words which is blending, long vowels, digraphs, and diphthongs. Phonogram flashcards are usefully in teaching word building. The flashcard focuses on the five short vowel sounds. Decoding books can be useful with a child who needs practice decoding the sound/syllables relationships in words that they have already learned. The read-aloud books help children hear a certain sound that they have been working on. Sound/Symbol books let the children read by themselves while they focus on sound/symbol relationships. All of these lessons are great to do with kids who are struggling and kids that are not struggling. The more practice a child receives the better they will understand the sounds of the letters and how the letters work together. There are so many opportunities to practice certain phonics and phonological awareness on this website. It is a great website for parents and teachers who want their children to become better readers.

Evaluated by: Ashley Chumchal


2. Half Pint Kids
www.halfpintkids.com

The website, halfpintkids.com is a wonderful tool for parents or teachers to use with children to help them with their emergent reading and activities for phonemic awareness.
Half Pint Kids has "readers" that a parent or teacher can buy that are fun to read, easy to decode and affordable. The readers were written by a Kindergarten teacher so they are both practical and effective as each word was carefully chosen. The readers are based upon the principles of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. Half-Pint Readers introduce only a few sounds or new skills at a time while providing lots of opportunities for practice before adding more skills. The books are centered around a theme and each book builds upon the skills of a previous book.
Half Pint Kids also has over 30 different activities that can be done with a child to go along with the readers. Some of the activities prepare the child for reading while others give instructions on how to teach and blend sounds. After the child has mastered the skill, there are games and activities to review and practice that skill.
The downside to this website is that the readers are not free. They are for sale on the website along with several games and activities to reinforce phonemic awareness.
Overall, this website has many great free activities to do with a child to get them started reading. Whether you plan to buy the readers or not, the website offers valuable information, games and activities that would get any child ready to read!

Evaluated by: Callista Young


3. Free-reading
www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Phonological_Awareness_Activities

Freereading.net is a fantastic website with numerous resources and activities for students and teachers particularly dealing with phonological awareness.
There are five tabs including, Core Activities, Educator-Contributed Activities, About Activities, Teaching Tips and Resources.
Under Find Activities there are many resources including- Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Comprehension, Vocabulary, Fluency and Writing.
If you click on Phonological Awareness there are numerous activities for building students phonological awareness, these activities are ordered in skill level, so once your students master the skill you are able to scroll down to a new level. Each activity provides explicit directions and details and some also provide a video of the activity or skill being learned. Some of the activities are identifying and generating rhyming words, body part game, counting words in a sentence and blending syllables name game.
Under educator-contributed activities there are over 70 other different activities for phonological awareness.

Under about the activities there is a complete overview on the importance of phonological awareness, two important manipulation skills are:

• Oral segmenting, which refers to taking spoken language and breaking it into separate parts. Phoneme segmenting, for instance, teaches students that words are composed of sounds, which they need to understand in order for sounding out to make sense.

• Oral blending, which refers to taking a sequence of sounds and putting them together to form spoken language. Phoneme blending is what students will need to do when they sound out words to pronounce them correctly. And information provided by the national reading panel.

The teaching tips tab provides great strategies and explanations on the lessons and activities that are very helpful. And the last tab which is resources provides picture cards that you can download, sound pronunciation guides in mp3 format that provides the recommended way to segment words into onset-rimes and phonemes

Freereading.net is a very useful tool for educators and great learning activities for students. It is also a collaborative website where you can share lessons and ideas!

Evaluated by: Jennifer Porton


4. PBS Spelling Games
http://pbskids.org/games/spelling.html

PBS is a great resource for young children’s learning. I particularly explored the area, spelling. It was such a wonderful website because how it delivered the phonological practices for kids. I mean, it was fun to go through different games/activities because of its rich sound and visual effects. The activities are animated so colorfully and more than that, the narrator’s exciting intonation was what grabbed my attention the most. I think children would not feel boring doing these activities even though most of them are similar. What they do is, in the spelling section, the narrator tells the sound of the letter for them to guess the correspondent letter that eventually makes up a word. For example, the narrator says, “Which letter makes the sound “p” pig?” And then the child has to choose the letter. When they get right, the narrator encourages the child, saying comments such as “Sensational!” There are different levels, which I thought it was good. In each game, there are always directions read from the narrator in fun background music, that children would never get bored. The only downside is that you might need to dig and choose what games to do according to specific practices you want children to learn. And there are a lot of activities other than the spelling part.
I had such fun time exploring it, and I am sure the kids will enjoy them, and teachers and parents can use them, pulling up this website to do the activities together and have some fun learning the sounds of the letter!

Evaluated by: Yire Lee

Starfall

http://www.starfall.com/

Starfall is an interactive website designed to help children learn how to read through the usage of phonics. The website is mainly designed for preschool aged students to second grade level students. It is also very helpful for special education and students learning English as a second language. The website is visually appealing to children, with pictures and colors, and easy to navigate. The website first starts with learning the ABCs, to get children prepared to learn how to read. It consists of sing-alongs to teach the children the different sounds the letters can make, along with teaching children the vowels. The next section puts the letters in words, and teaches children how to say the entire word, through different short phrases. The next section puts the phrases into sentences. And that section is followed with putting sentences into stories. The best part of the website is that it is interactive. It is more like playing a game, then it is learning how to read. For example, the website will prompt the user with a question like "Who am I?" and the user must click on boy or girl. Simple tools like this can really facilitate the child's learning, because it is necessary for a child to want to learn. When there is a learning game to be played, the child is more willing to learn, and more ready to accept new information.

This resource can be used in a classroom setting (if computers are present) or at home for outside of school assignments. The website has levels for different levels, and allows a student to move through it at their own pace. This is very helpful in classes with a mix of students who already know the English language, to students who are learning it as their second language. The website talks to the students so that they can orally and visually learn at the same time. The speaker also repeats the sounds, words, phrases, and sentences while the computer screen visually repeats the same.

By Myron Hardy

Literacy Acquisition Through Fun Activities

The resources we found focused on how fun and games can help students with literacy acquisition. With something that is enjoyable, students will be more motivated towards learning how to read and write. It'll allow students to engage with language in different ways with positive attitudes. If it's fun, learning won't be seen as such a daunting task.

1) http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

Game Goo is an interesting website that helps kids practice recognizing letters, forming sentences, spelling, and other many other things through games. The website consists of several small games that cover many sorts of activities such as identifying antonyms, identifying synonyms, and letter-sound correspondences. They are ranked from beginner to advanced, and each game presents colorful characters and backgrounds, interesting drawing styles, music, voices and fun extras. They are definitely fun games that do help practice learning the basics of language while having fun. I have tried a few games myself and found them to be enjoyable as well as educational. The games are intended mostly for young kids who are starting to learn the English language, but it may be enjoyable for other audiences, as I myself did. These games are designed more to be enjoyed outside of the classroom during free time or at home on the computer. For those who want to learn but still have fun during the process, these games at Game Goo are definitely worth looking into.

By Samuel Martinez

2)http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/kids.htm

One website and source that I feel many people overlook to help students with their literacy acquisition are local library websites. Austin Public Library has a great website and programs for students of all ages to promote literacy acquisition. They offer a plethora of sources for parents and adults to use. The divide it into three different programs: Children's Programming, Teen Programming and Outreach programming. Each program focuses mainly on reading and attracting students to reading. For the children's programming, they have various activities where students and caregivers can get involved with reading stories. I've gone and sat in on these read-along type activities and seen how much fun children have. It also is great because it allows adults/parents/caregivers to get actively involved with students and reading. This would provide students with a more meaningful way of reading. The experience they share with their caregiver will give them more motivation towards reading and developing their skills. The children sat attentively and listened to the person reading to them. Then afterwards they would even do certain activities to help with spelling, learning word sounds, and things like that. It was almost like an extra literacy learning for students out side of school. On top of allowing students a fun experience, they will be receiving extra attention to literacy outside of the classroom environment. The people who run the programs are very great with helping students learn and giving parents pointers, tips, and resources to help their students with literacy acquisition

The Austin Public Library website also has links to websites to help students with learning. Parents and educators can easily access these materials to use for their children. One source I found very interesting is called “Tumble Book Library.” This program provides story books, puzzles/games, audio books, and featured books that are recommended for children. I feel that with the integration of technology to our everyday lives, a computer-oriented reading program would be received greatly by students. The library itself, provides students with animated, talking picture books. It's a resource available for teachers and librarians to order and have for their children. It even provides teachers with lesson plans and worksheets for their students. For teachers that need help with their literacy activities, this “library” will be very helpful. There are some things available for free online, but for the more extensive material, it would need to be purchased. However, what's available online is very vibrant images, sounds and animation to draw students to stories.

One of the greatest resources we can go to for resources for literacy learning for students, if our very own public libraries. Often times you won't realize the amount of fun activities and games they might have to offer your students.

By Thaison Nguyen

How students develop reading skills

http://pbskids.org/lions/games/
Between the Lions is a great website for children 3 and up because not only does it read the book to you but the children can follow along to try and sound out the words as they are said. There are three categories for the children to explore which are the following: Games, Stories, and Video Clips. These different areas give children a different way of learning. By watching the words light up while the reader reads the words the child can relate and comprehend how to read words. Also, with the games they aren't just allowing children to play any games but rhyming games so it can help the children understand rhyming and also can help with the similarities in the sounds to spell words in the future. It allows the children to variety on how they want to learn and what is easiest for them. Video clips can include fictional characters but also real people who read them stories. The website contains a lot of authors who read their own books and say their intake on the stories they are telling. The website attracts children which is necessary for them to learn. They need to be interested in what they are learning and how they are learning it and between the lions gives variety for different type of children. Last, It can be used with the parents or for the parents so they learn how they can teach their children or how they can be involved with their children's learning ability.
By: Courtney Kagan

http://www.colorincolorado.org/
The purpose of “Colorín Colorado” is to provide information, strategies, and activities for teachers of English Language Learners. The variety of activities provided help benefit students of all ages and levels of literacy development. The sidebar of this website includes tabs for both educators and for families with ideas and helpful approaches for students to linguistically develop their English. The Educators’ Section can be adapted by teachers in various teaching situations including ESL teachers and general education teachers with ELLs in their classroom. The “For Educators” tab includes links that explain the importance of reaching out to Hispanic Students and families, the ELL Resources necessary for each grade level, the assessment and placement processes teachers must be aware of, as well as other helpful tools and ideas that students may benefit from.The Families’ Section provides parents with an idea of how they can help their child to succeed at school. This tab includes links such as tips that are essential to a child’s bilingual development, informational articles and resources, as well as an entire page dedicated to the requirement for strong Parent-Educator partnerships. In addition to sections specifically for teachers and parents, this site literally offers information on “Topics A-Z” that address a wide variety ideas that can impact students’ literacy development.Colorín Colorado more specifically focuses on the development of Hispanic students and their families considering the vast majority of ELLs in the United States today are Spanish-speaking. However, the strategies the website provides are applicable to students from all bilingual backgrounds.
By: Melissa Berger

http://www.funbrain.com/index.html
This website is great for children in the beginning stages of literacy development. The child and parent can pick the child's reading level at the bottom of the page, and then click on the section labeled, “Reading,” where there are popular comic books for the child to read aloud to the parent. The website is for children from grades K to 8, so the reading is encouraged at all stages for early elementary to secondary education. There is also Madlib activities for children K to 2, where the child must fill in the correct word depending on whether it is an adjective, noun, or verb, and sometimes it depends on what the letter begins with; for example, on the madlibs for the Kindergarten section it says, “'H' is for Henry's Hotdog Hut,” and then it tells the child to pick or type in an adjective, noun, verb, or plural verb that begins with an “h.” This is a great activity for ESL students in developing the foundations of learning the English language by becoming familiar with the nouns, and also by learning that the “h” makes a “hhhh” sound. ESL students can build their phonological awareness for the English language. These games will help strengthen writing/reading skills and vocab. This website has multiple activities to encourage students to read. Web books, word games, grammar and spelling activities, There are also a great amount of other reading tools and writing tools that this website has made fun to encourage the kids to keep practicing their reading and writing skills.
By: Morgan Smith

http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet.htm
This website has great activities for students, especially ELL students. Some of the activities include writing a poem inspired by a painting. Printing out a story and illustrating the pictures to go along with them. This encourages students reading development because they have to be able to read the story to know what to draw in their illustrations instead of drawing random things. Monthly calendars in English and Spanish for daily reading activities, like reading a Dr. Seuss book to a younger student. The website also has stories that children can read and listen to online, gives books and information about different cultures. The website has games about languages where you match English words to the words in other languages. There is also an author of the month and an interview that children can read about the author. This website gives students a variety of tools to read online, which encourages reading acquisition. It also provides resources like book titles for students to read and ideas for children to get them involved in literacy development of reading and writing.
By: Mary Rice