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

Grammar and Writing

These sights are designed to help children with their grammar and writing skills.

Clean Up Your Grammar: http://www.missmaggie.org/scholastic/cleanup_eng_launcher.html

“Clean up Your Grammar” is an online game from the site “Maggie’s Earth Adventures, LPC.” The mission of this website is to help children learn about real life environmental problems. They state that “learners respond best to integrated material presented in meaningful situations.” With this particular game, “Clean up Your Grammar,” students “recycle the trash that washes up on the shore by dropping the words in the right bin.” If the children make any mistakes the beach becomes dirty with litter.

The goal of the game is to recycle 10 pieces of trash. Each piece of trash has a word on it that’s either a noun or a verb. The children have to click on the words and drag them into their correct recycle bin. The recycle bins are labeled “Nouns” and “Verbs.” The game has a lot of sound effects and there are two different levels to choose from. If a child makes a mistake and puts a word in the wrong recycle bin, the game makes a noise and puts a big ‘X’ and the word ‘incorrect.’ The trash that the word was attached to then gets thrown on the beach.

Some of the strengths of this game are that it’s enjoyable to do and provides children with some information on the environment. It also teaches them an important difference between verbs and nouns. However, this game would be restricted to a very limited age group and some very specific words are continually recycled within the game. It would not be long before children master both levels and are ready to move on to something else.

I also think this would be a good game to use when teaching the specific concepts of verbs and nouns and I would probably use it in my classroom as a fun way to solidify those ideas. But children would definitely need some background information on what verbs and nouns are before playing. This game is also relatively applicable and useful for multiliteracy classrooms because there are visuals to help children with the concepts. Nevertheless, children would need to have a basic understanding of the difference between verbs and nouns and would need to know and understand the vocabulary words used in the game.

Overall, I think this is a useful game for solidifying the concept of verbs and nouns. Children should enjoy playing it and feel good about keeping the beach clean. The game can also teach them how important it is to recycle and they will hopefully be able to apply this in their own life. It would have been a great game to play during class on Earth Day this past week, or in a unit focused on educating children about environmental issues.

(Evaluated by Clare Cryar)

Toon University: http://www.toonuniversity.com/aol/aol_language_k2.asp

Toon University is an online activities website geared towards elementary age students, more specifically 1st & 2nd graders. This page offers 5 online games/activities students can play around with for fun, while learning at the same time. The focus of this site is to improve language arts skills and each game focuses on a specific area of content.

On the main page there are 5 links you can click on that take you to the game of your choice. The five focus areas are opposites, alphabetizing, inferences, punctuation & capitalization and abbreviations. I played all the games and they are fun and easy to use. These games can be used by teachers or parents because they are educational. Another great thing about this page is it can be used by students who are learning English because it is basic and not too challenging. ESL students who need help in these content areas will greatly improve their knowledge of language arts. These lessons teach necessary skills to speak and write in English and through repetitive practice they will grow as English speakers. Once they master one activity they can move on to the next and have a new area to focus on, and so on.

Some cons of this website are the limitations of the main page and rest of the website. There is not a lot of room to grow besides these 5 activities unless you want to pay to be a member. Kids may get bored or move on to the next language arts level and therefore move on from this site. Another con is some of the games don’t provide feedback or the correct answers so students who aren’t at the level of these activities may need teacher or parent supervision. Also some of the links lead you to other parts of this website rather than the activities main page. Though this site has some flaws its purpose is accomplished through the activities it offers.

As a teacher I would use this website during free time. If my class is working in the computer lab and students finish their work early I would allow them to play on this type website. It may not be used for a main assignment but more of a review type situation. I think it would be great for parents to use with their children at home if they are struggling or need extra practice. In classrooms, if students work on these activities alone, they won’t feel the pressure of getting the answers wrong in front of everyone which will build their confidence. As an ESL teacher you could play this game as a class or in groups which will work on comprehensible input and output from the teacher, students and website.

Overall this website is simple and beneficial for students. It helps to build a stronger foundation for reading and grammar while engaging kids in fun activities. I would suggest this site to anyone who is looking for an internet based interaction for students’, parents or teachers. Also if you do decide to become a member ($99.95 yearly, discount for students and teachers) there are a ton of resources and activities for all ages. Parents, teachers, and students will love the opportunities to learn, teach and grow because of Toon University. They offer activities for the subjects of math, reading, social studies, and science for Pre-K to 6th grade level students. Also they have a teacher store and toonbooks. If you are truly interested in this website they even offer a free 10-day trial. Check it out!

(Evaluated by Marissa Rosenstein)

Bitsize: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/writing/

Bitesize is a website where children can practice their English, math, and writing skills. It is really easy to navigate, with links that lead the children right to the different activity choices. This is a great resource for students who are English speakers or ELL students. It Explains why writing is important for children to be able to communicate, and then gives multiple kinds of writing styles that may be used. This would be very helpful in the classroom or for children to use at home, because it not only helps with how to form sentences, but also how to write letters, instructions, arguments, comments, leaflets, and story planning. Allowing students to practice different types of writing will help them in the future when they are writing for different purposes. This is an extremely hands on website. For each type of writing the students can play a game, read about important information on each type of writing, watch a video about it, or take a quiz over the subject. This gives them information and practice in multiple ways, which is one of the main strengths of the website. I would not say that there are any downfalls to it, and I will for sure use it when I become a teacher. I could use this website for home work assignments, and have the children practice playing the games and learning about each type of writing style, have them take the quiz, and then have a writing assignment in class using the different styles of writing. I would recommend this website for children who are ELL learners and English speakers for all the subjects that it offers, not only English.

(Evaluated by Micah Morgan)

Arcademic Skill Builders: http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

This site has different subjects that the kids can build their academic skills on. The different subjects that they have are: Mathematics, Language Arts and Geography. Children get to play different kinds of games that will test how well they are doing on those subjects. Each game is a race against either the computer or another player and there are also some timed individual games. At the end of each game, the children are shown what they missed while they were playing the game. This site can be really fun and they have an option that once all the children are logged in they can all compete against each other.

This site can be really fun for the children who do well on the site. However, for the children whose minds are not as quick to be able to answer the questions fast enough to win, then it could have a negative effect on them. They can feel like they are not as smart as the children who always win the race because they are very quick with their answers. As for ESL learners I think that this would be extremely difficult for them because they won’t be able to think as fast as the other students who are native English speakers. So they wont be as motivated to try to win the games because they will most likely feel like the native English speakers will win anyway so there is no point in putting up much effort. The games are very fun; the individual games will be less pressure for the child to come up with the answers against anther peer but there will still be pressure to come up with the answer fast enough to have a high school. The timed games are much easier for a ESL learner because the only person who is going to see their score is the student.

(Evaluated by Candyce Pace)

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

Emergent Writing for Children

Our resources are great for children who are in the beginning stages of writing. They include worksheets, printouts, and activities for the children to do in order to begin the writing process.

1. Kid-Zone
http://www.kidzone.ws/preK_wrksht/dynamic.htm

Teacher can use this website for children who are starting to write. The worksheets on the website start out with simple straight lines and then go into more complex drawing. The purpose of the activities is to develop the student’s control of their small muscles in their hand. Developing these movements will help the children make more precise movements when forming letters and improve hand/eye coordination. The worksheets start with tracing horizontal and vertical line then going on to curve lines. The worksheets begin with the student tracing the line. Towards the end of the worksheet the student has to try and make the line by themselves. After going through the different line worksheets there are pictures that the students can trace and then color. Teachers can coordinate the worksheets to another part of their lesson plan, such as if the students are reading a book about pigs they can trace and color a picture of a pig. Teachers have to make the worksheets fun so the kids are more excited to work on there writing skills. I think kids need to start with small steps as they begin to write. Kids need practice making straight lines and curves because it links to being able to write letters. All letters have either line and/or curves in them. If kids are familiar with making lines and curves then writing letters will come easier to them. This activity can be used in any classroom because all languages have a written form. All students, no matter what language they speak, will have to write in some language.

Evaluated by: Ashley Chumchal

2. Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/essay/writing.shtml

The website EnchantedLearning.com is a wonderful tool for parents or teachers to use with children to help them learn how to read and write. Enchanted Learning has tons of easy ways to teach children how to read and write. The goal of the site is to, “produce children's educational web sites which are designed to capture the imagination while maximizing creativity, learning, and enjoyment.” (Enchanted Learning). The lessons the website provides are enjoyable and easy to follow. This website has materials based on themes, languages, grade levels, and many more. The website makes it easy for a parent or teacher to use the lesson plans already provided to help their child or student start the writing process.

The website is great because it provides writing activities for children who are early to fluent writers. The user of the site can use the activities provided to move along in the writing process. Besides printouts, the site has other activities as well to aide in the writing process. It has activities to aide in writing letters, short books, reports, essays and writing prompts. There are many worksheets that could be used for homework or in the classroom as well as at home. They give you examples for topics that interest children and many printouts that would spark a child’s interest in writing.

Although the website has many activities, it does not explain the importance of teaching children how to write. There isn’t any focus on how emergent reading and writing go together and the site is also had to follow. There are many items to click on and it’s easy to get lost within the site. The site also has a fee if you wish to use all the resources within the site not just the sample pages.

Overall, this site is a great resource for activities to use at home or in the classroom to help students learn to write. With activities like this, children are sure to have fun while gaining the skills they need to write.

Evaluated by: Callista Young

3. Read-Write-Think
http://www.readwritethink.org

www.readwritethink.org is a great resource for teachers, students and parents for emergent reading and writing. This website offers new approaches to teaching literacy, opportunities to connect with local literacy leaders, classroom resources, professional development resources and parent and afterschool resources. There are four tabs located at the top of the page, including classroom resources, professional development, about us section and parent and afterschool resources.

The Classroom Resources tab provides lesson plans for grades k-12 including standard lessons, mini lessons, units, recurring lessons, learning objectives for students, and themes. The student interactive link also provides activities by type, theme and learning objectives. There is also a link for calendar activities and printouts of multiple literacy activities.

Strategy Guides
Professional Library
Meetings & EventsOnline
Professional Development

The Professional Development tab provides links for strategy guides, accesses to a professional library, local and national meeting and events, and online professional development that provides web seminars.

The About Us section provides information about IRA, NCTE and Verizon thinkfinity. This section also provides community stories, news and national and state standards; every lesson plan on readewritething.org has been aligned to the IRA/NCTE standards and to each individual state standards.

The parent and afterschool recourses tab provides an activities and projects section, games and tools section, tips and how to section, printouts and podcasts. All organized by Grade level.

The readwritethink.org website has an incredible amount of useful information and resources. It is organize very well and easy to find what you’re looking for. It provides activities and resources for all grade levels. Easy to follow activities for parents, multiple printouts and lesson plans for teachers that are in accordance to the national and state standards. Each lesson or activities also provides examples and information on how this activity will help your students and what exactly they will be learning. It is also associated with the International Reading association (IRA) and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) so the information provided is valid, trusted and up to date.

Evaluated by: Jennifer Porton

4. Kids’ Space
http://storytrain.kids-space.org/index.html

The Kids’ Space website is very creative and awesome resource for emergent writers. In the website, children are exposed to write stories and submit them which could be posted on the website. It involves participants from different countries, which makes writing more meaningful and fun. The website encourages children to write stories of their own, giving a sense of ownership, self-esteem and motivation. Children post either or both of their writings and drawings, therefore, kids who enjoy arts could have more fun in writing. It is also very interactive because children share their own original stories with others all over the country. Even children who have not acquired a proficient level of writing skills can enjoy writing with a little help of an assistance, which gives a purpose of learning writing. All of the writings from children are protected and monitored carefully by editors from the website.

In Kids’Gallery, there are abstract, animal, fantasy, people, scenery, etc. In each section, there are drawing, and kids get to come up with a story from the picture. The pictures are created by children from all over the world, which is just fascinating. They will more likely to have fun making up a story with the picture that other kids drew, thus, motivating them and giving them a fun reason for learning to write better.

In Story Book section, kids can read what others wrote and also can submit their writing. In one activity, kids write stories using certain pictures. They make the title, name the object and write the story. In another activity, children write a folk tale that they either heard or read. And children can read the stories of folk tales from all over the world.

Evaluated by: Yire Lee

Unique Strategies and Activities to Help Teachers Teach Children Literacy

The Websites our group has provided will help teachers develop methods and strategies to improve their student’s literacy and learning capabilities. These websites include stories, games, and practice work to help children develop their literacy skills for the future.

1) http://www.meddybemps.com/7.33.html

The Website I have chose focuses primarily on helping children in preschool and children up to the age of 8. This website is great for helping children hone their literacy skills by providing a large amount of games that specialize in different aspects of literacy. For example this website provides games in the fields of “writing and reading”, “observation and discussion”, and “language skills.” Though I have only listed three sections that offer games to help children increase their literacy skills, there are many more. What makes this website great is that it provides levels for each game, for example a 4 year old child can do the same game as an 8 year old child, but the content will be slightly different. I really like the structure of this website, it keeps the child thinking differently by offering a wide variety of games to chose from, a child can work on his reading by doing the “riddle” sections or if the child would like to work on their writing, they can just play the “writing and reading” games. Also if games like that don’t appeal to the child they can play puzzles.

This websites looks like if it were to be used by a teacher they could only assign these activities during school. It would not be a good idea to use this website for homework assignments because there is no way to check the child work. When dealing with multiliteracy classrooms, this website is useful to a point. This website offers a “language skills” section where they offer stories that can be translated into 12 different languages. This would help greatly in a multiliteracy classroom because the teacher could tell the child to read it in their 2^nd language first than their 1^st language to grasp the full meaning of the story. The “language skills” section offers a wide variety of stories and this would be very helpful in multiliteracy classrooms. The best way to use this website would be a “classroom fieldtrip” to the computer lab. Most of the learning that will be taking place will be on the computer and alone without the help of others. Scaffolding will still be possible, the teacher should walk around and make sure the child is doing what he or she is supposed to, but there is room for the child to wonder about and just randomly click during the games and end up not really learning. The teacher should make sure he or she knows the levels of each child’s literacy, so they may assign the child what game level to work with. Also the teacher should definitely switch up the games in order to keep the child’s mind thinking and creating new ideas.

By: Michael Dang

2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/index.shtml

I think this is a great website to improve children’s literacy, as well as build confidence, as the activities seem easy enough that they could do them on their own for the most part, with a little guidance on the instructions. It uses a bunch of bright and pastel, fun colors on the homepage, which are more appealing and inviting.

What stood out to me right away was the fact that there are games and activities for all different levels, whether you have a child who is just starting to build their literacy skills, or whether you have one who is a little more advanced. I think this would help a whole lot in a class with both L1 and L2 learners, as there is something for everyone. For example, on the left includes different links of different categories that are available to children. These include, but are not limited to, CVC Words, High Frequency Words, Consonant Clusters, and so on. Clicking on CVC Words, shows a couple different activities, including a “Magic Pencil,” in which you can watch the pencil write a word, and then write it yourself. Another is a little more advanced and you try to make different words with the limited letters they give you, proving to be a little more of a challenge. Another thing I like is that all of this is not online. They also have a “Print and Do” section. This could come in handy, as the teachers could print these and send them home with the children. Or, if a family does not have computer access, they could maybe go to a local library and print the sheets out to take them home to do with their children.

This website focuses on many of the difficult aspects to fully grasping literacy. There is a whole section devoted to words that are frequently used, as well as one focusing on long vowel sounds, such as “coat” and “hide.” Another cool aspect is the gallery of “Silly Sentences” where children and parents can actually submit sentences of their own that they have made up. This could give children a sense of accomplishment as they can build on their skills, and then prove what they have learned later.

I discussed all of the strengths above, so now for a couple weaknesses. There could be more pictures, especially on the home page, to make it seem like a more fun website. I think a more exciting layout would definitely spice it up. Also, once the students have done the exercises, there’s not really any more to do, so maybe an update every once in a while with new, exciting ideas would be a good idea! And finally, some software is necessary, for example, a RealPlayer for the Magic Pencil, which might not be compatible with all computers.

Overall, any kind of practice is good practice when learning and developing literacy skills. But, I think that this website has a fun and cool way of doing things!

“Evaluated by Kayla Acosta”

3) http://www.tickettoread.com

The aforementioned website is a wonderful tool for children to use to increase their vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and increase their overall level of literacy. Although the website is not free, it can be a very effective if purchased through the school or the district.

This website is individualized so that each student has his or her own account. Each user has a home page called a club house. The club house is a place that they can decorate and customize. They may purchase decorative items and other trinkets with tickets they earn. Users earn tickets by reading short passages that range from a paragraph to a page. T.J. Ticket is an animated character who reads all of the instructions aloud and gives clues to the user as he or she navigates the website. He’s TicketToRead’s equivalent of Microsoft Word’s Paperclip. T.J. Ticket shows up after each segment of the lesson to further instruct students.

This website is really effective because it measures the student’s progress by asking comprehension questions, setting a goal for the words read per minute, tracking the student’s words read per minute, and tickets. For every passage the student reads, they get 100 tickets. The website tracks the amount of time the student uses to finish the passage and records it. If the student reads too quickly, the When they read the story aloud into a microphone, they get 50 additional tickets. At the end of each short passage, there is a series of 6 comprehension questions. The questions have an audio button for students who can’t comprehend what the question is asking by reading it. This is especially helpful for second language learnersbecause it reinforces their comprehension with the audio aid. For each question answered correctly, 10 tickets are earned. In order to help readers stay on track, the screen highlights the current line when the student mouses over it.

For students who have trouble with reading and are not reading at the “Target” speed, T.J. Ticket offers a few words of encouragement and asks the reader to follow along as the narrator reads the story to the student. Then, there are flashcards that appear with the three vocabulary words in the passage. On these interactive flashcards, the word is read aloud, a picture of the word is shown, and the definition is read aloud. After a few moments, the narrator uses a sentence with the word, making the word more meaningful to the student. The student is then asked to read the passage along with the narrator which helps the student with fluency, inflection, and tone.

If implemented in a school-wide setting, it would be a great incentive system for children to read. Teachers can keep a list of how many tickets their students have and use that as an incentive for a school wide store full of goods like pencils, school supplies, small toys, and bigger prizes that can be won if students save enough tickets.

By: Karynna Garcia

4) http://www.eduplace.com/kids/

The Austin School District has just adopted Houghton Mifflin as their primary textbook source. This website would be extremely beneficial for students (especially AISD students) because it is a great way for the students to have access to a fun way of learning on the web and it is in sync with what they are reading and learning in school. This website is very interactive and the learning aspect is easily disguised because it is entertaining. The student can choose between many different school subjects, among them spelling and language arts. There are levels that pertain to grades so the activities are appropriate. It’s important, in this era, for children to learn how to access the web because there is so much information they can gain through it. These games are kid friendly and provide an excellent source of information because it comes from the textbook creators.

Students could be required to master certain levels and games at home or even at school and print out their scores. This is a way to check their understanding but also give them a sense of accomplishment. The website has a wide spectrum of learning techniques for all different types of learners. This is especially helpful for visual learners (like me!) Using this website is helpful because students can go at their own pace and bilingual students can find games and activities according to their level and knowledge of English.

I love the idea of this website because it parallels to what is being taught in schools that carry Houghton Mifflin books.

By: Kate Hoffner

Activities for Emergent Writers

The following resources can be used by parents, teachers, or students as they begin teaching writing, or learning how to write. Through these resources we hope your child can become an enthusiastic and successful writer!

1.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/More+than+just+storybooks:+promoting+emergent+literacy+skills+in+the...-a0198931268

This article focuses mainly on how the parents can aid their child at a young age at home, and also outside of the school setting. It emphasizes the parents not acting like teachers, rather being an aid who scaffolds the child. The parent is encouraged to take the child above and beyond their original literacy understanding, and move towards new levels. The article shows how important joint writing is, and is often underestimated and worked on less than joint emergent reading practices with parents. The page did a good job of showing how a parent could use a storybook to encourage the child to read more, but also become interested in the story. The dialogue that is on the site demonstrates the interactions between parent and child while discussing a page from a book. The parent is asking about what is in the pictures, and asking the child to connect the pictures to the storyline. After the reading section, the author focuses on emergent writing practices. The parent is made aware of different reading opportunities are in the usual child’s environment, and shows suggestions on how to take advantage of the opportunities. A strength I found of this emergent writing section is how the author uses specific items such as cookie dough, letter blocks, and spaghetti to help the child write or draw different symbols, letters, and words. Although the article is fairly good with giving examples and ideas on how to aid a child’s emergent writing, there are a few limitations. The article didn’t show which practices would be more age appropriate, or skill appropriate. There was just a listing or short description, nothing that really went into why the child should do the activity, or what their prior knowledge needs to be. This resource can be used in class for homework assignments by having all the children read the same book outside of class at home with their parent or guardian, and have them be responsible for answering a series of questions. The questions can all be fairly easy at the beginning and the last couple can be more open ended, where parents are encouraged to aid and scaffold their children to a form of higher level thinking. The accountability testing can be having the child write a story in class in a way that applied the original book to their own lives. This page doesn’t really take into account muliliteracy settings, just mainly parents scaffolding their own child’s reading, and not having to adapt to other levels than their own kin’s. This can illustrate a good level of principle of teaching because it encourages a good relationship between the parents and the classroom teacher. It is always important to have a good connection with the parents, seeing that they have such a large influence on the child in general. There are a few questions I have concerning this article, one including; How can the teacher get the parents influenced in aiding their own kids outside of school? How can the teacher be able to entice the parents to go above and beyond for their kids? Other than that, I think the article was fairly solid on emergent writing practices and reading practices as well.

Evaluated by Jordan Farmer

2.

http://www.bankstreet.edu/literacyguide/write.html

This article discusses a variety of writing activities to do with children who are learning to write. Also, different teaching methods are discussed that should be used when evaluating the writing of the learner. Writing activities for emergent writers can be modified for children at any age and writing level. According to the article, writing activities should be “enjoyable”, a “way to express thoughts and feelings”, and a “way to communicate with others” (Writing Activities).

The activities given are for children who already know how to write words and a few of these activities were modified for children who do not know how to write words. For example, for more advanced students, inviting the student to draw a picture and then write about it will help them engage in writing, but also will allow them to use their imagination. A limitation to this activity is that students who are not comfortable with writing may spend all their time drawing the picture; setting a time limit may encourage the student to equally divide his/her time between drawing and writing the story. A good way to modify this activity for a beginning writer would be to have them draw a picture, but instead of writing a whole story about it, allow them to write one or two letters that may represent the picture. If the picture is of a dog, the student may write the letter “d” under the picture to represent the word dog. This is just one example of the many great activities provided in this resource. The activities are great references for all teachers because it provides activities for most ages and writing levels.

Although the article did give modifications to some of the activities, they were only to make the activity easier. Ideas to make the activities more challenging for advanced writers would have been helpful in this article. All of the activities given would be great for in class or for homework assignments. They are not too challenging and may be completed in a reasonable amount of time. The activities would also be expectable for multiliteracy classrooms because they allow the individual to use their imagination. Most of the students should be able to participate in each activity no matter how developed their language skills are, but the performance of the students may vary on different levels. This article provides a lot of helpful hints and strategies to keep children motivated while learning to write. When teachers show interest in their student’s work instead of only correcting their errors, this encourages the writer to continue writing and learn from their mistakes over time. The strategies listed in the article illustrate great teaching methods to use with emergent writers in all levels of writing. Overall this article is a great resource for teachers to use who need activities and advice for teaching emergent writers.

“Guide to Literacy for Volunteers and Tutors: Writing Activities.” Bank Street College. August 2001. Web. 22 March 2010.

Evaluated by Jeana Sorrels

3.

http://www.lessonsense.com

The website LessonSense.com is a fantastic tool for parents and teachers to use as they help teach their children and students learn how to read and write. Lesson Sense, explains the importance of reading and writing and provides fun and easy ways to teach children how to read and write. Through free and easy to follow lessons provided by Lesson Sense, teaching your child or student to read and write can be fun and enjoyable. By providing lesson ideas and materials on a daily basis, Lesson Sense is a one-stop site that any teach or parent can use. With the planning already completed, all a parent or teacher needs to do is focus on teaching their children or students which is one of the most important aspects of learning. Lesson Sense also provides a list of sites for lesson planning for ELL students.

One great aspect of Lesson Sense is that it explains situations in which emergent literacy is learned and how it can be aided through parents and teachers. This way parents and teachers understand the importance of teaching reading and writing as well as ways to teach them. Lesson Sense focuses on the relationship between reading and writing, and how both are critical for becoming both avid readers and writers. They do this through specifically formed lessons such as preparing flash cards with pictures and words. For example, a teacher can show a flash card with a picture on it, and ask the students to write the word of the picture they see. This way they are relating meaning to their writing. Lesson Sense provides these types of activities and flashcards.

Within the Lesson Sense website, you can choose lessons that are based around certain themes. For example, if your students or children are learning about animals, you can click on the theme tab and scroll down to the “animals” tab and up pops a ton of worksheets and lesson ideas for reading and writing about animals! What a great tool to use for incorporating content with reading and writing. There is also a fun and educational game section within Lesson Sense. You can choose a game from the list provided, download the necessary documents and you are ready to go.

Although Lesson Sense is a great tool for lesson planning, it does not provide specific lessons for very early writing. For example, activities for children who are just beginning to write can be difficult to come up with and it would be beneficial if Lesson Sense would add them to their website. Activities such as having children write their name and the names of their friends on a poster board, or writing the names of their family members on paper with pictures of their family.

Overall, Lesson Sense is a great and easy tool parents and teachers can use at home or in the classroom. Full lesson plans are just a click away!

Evaluated by Brooke Ellis

4.

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/magictreehouse/club.html

The above website is based on The Magic Tree House book series which has been a popular instructional tool for developing the reading skills of young students. However, this great web resource not only promotes reading, but also encourages elementary level children to strengthen and improve their writing skills through The Magic Tree House stories. Foremost, the home page, entitled “Readers and Writers Club,” defines writing in terms of the excitement involved in play and make-believe. It also provides a list of five writing lessons. Each lesson is designed to encourage a component of writing such as character or setting development, and by selecting one of the various items the student is redirected to a new page that is dedicated to the chosen element. The page provides a definition of the term, in reference to both reading and writing, and also offers a detailed example of its use in one of The Magic Tree House selections. Furthermore, Character’s from the series suggest tips, games and role-taking activities that support the learner’s involvement in developing an understanding of the topic.

By connecting writing to reading, this resource helps learners to recognize the inter-relationship between the two modes of literacy, which are frequently taught in isolation. Therefore, the classroom teacher could have students read a selection from the book series and then use this Internet site to facilitate and expand the construction of writing skills. However, because the lessons are structured around specific readings, one limitation of this web resource is that a teacher may not be able to use the page, if he or she has the class read an alternative piece of literature. In addition, the learner’s practice of reading and then answering online activity questions implies that the student may be acting as the exclusive builder of their own knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary that the classroom teacher utilize the “Readers and Writers club” to not only promote independent work but also guided student practice along with social collaboration and exploration.

Evaluated by Kathleen Armitage

Have fun writing!!!