Teachers
Elementary Resources: Language
Arts
You will find games, links to hundreds of activities for kids,
descriptions of all the TV episodes, and book recommendations
for educators.
The Center for Development and Learning is making available
a free three-page tool to help teachers pinpoint the specific
difficulties a struggling reader may have in decoding words
with short vowels and in reading simple sentences. The quick
assessment helps teachers see patterns in a student's errors,
which in turn helps you target instruction.
Teachers and students now have access to a matrix of critically
reviewed WebQuests designed around a member of core and supplementary
disciplines -- from basic English, math, and science quests
to business, economics, and even art. Every WebQuest is categorized
by subject and grade level and is evaluated on a five-star
scale that includes such criteria as use of of the web, use
of roles and expertise, engaging writing, and overall clarity.
You'll also be able to read tips on what makes a great WebQuest
and submit your creation for review.
This site introduces children to the many places they are
likely to encounter the written word and helps transform the
sometimes confusing process of learning to read into an entertaining
adventure for young children and their families.
Listen to Cleo and Brian McKnight croon about homophones,
or Leona sing a sad song about the gingerbread man. Or, if
you like, enjoy clips of Chicken Jane, Vowel Boot Camp, and
Sam Spud!
Teachers, check out the BETWEEN THE LIONS Web site to find
games based on a specific letter or vowel digraph.
You can also play printable versions of your favorite BETWEEN THE LIONS
online games: Chicken Stacker, Gawain's Word, Alphabet Soup,
Flood!, A.B. Cow, Pounce! and Fuzzy Lion Ears
Created by teacher and author Jim Burke, this site is
designed to help English teachers find materials and ideas
they can use in the classroom. English Companion included
news articles relevant to teaching K-12 English and direct
links to daily poems, daily words, literary resources, grant
opportunities, conversation sites for English teachers, and
other teacher tools. Also included are copies of various sabbatical
projects, including those on test-taking skills, traits of
effective readers, and state standards. The site's
Booktalk section allows students to rate and comment on specific books
they have read and post their comments for others to read.
Burke's site also includes an interesting link to the Library
of Congress's Today in History page.
You'll find listings and information about books for children
and young adults that are categorized for easy searching.
This dynamic and evolving database includes materials describing
culturally and linguistically appropriate practices for early
childhood/early intervention services.
>>en
Español
The Cornerstones Project uses
BETWEEN THE LIONS programs to help teach literacy to kids who are deaf and hard
of hearing. Although they are designed for students who are
hearing impaired, these teaching units can be used in any
classroom situation.
See
versions of the story "Click, Clack, Moo."
CyberGuides are supplementary, standards-based, K-12 web-delivered units of instruction centered on core works of literature.
Each CyberGuide contains a student and teacher edition, standards, a task and a process by which it may be completed,
teacher-selected web sites and a rubric.
ERIC Clearinghouses have made increasing use of the Internet
to make a larger body of education information accessible
to the public.
A fascinating study reported last week by Stanford University
compared the MRI brain scans and reading tests of 20 children
with dyslexia before and after they spent 100 minutes a day
for eight weeks with a computer program designed to develop
their phonological awareness. Reading scores went up and critical
areas of the children's brains were activated for the first
time. A video interview with one of the study's authors is
on the site.
Playing with sounds and words is a great way for little ones
to build their phonemic awareness. On the SESAME STREET Web
site, preschoolers can have fun with Elmo by trying to find
objects with names that rhyme, such as "can" and
"pan."
This website has some excellent resources and tips for tutoring English-language learners.
This new online reading club brings children's books to
life. Educational publisher Scholastic Inc. has created a
new web site intended to foster a lifelong love of reading
among students. Billed as the "ultimate ... multimedia
experience for kids who love books," Flashlight Readers
invites young learners to join a virtual reading club, which
allows them to participate in moderated author chats, trade
instant messages with other readers, explore authors' original
manuscripts, and play interactive games designed to bring
their favorite books to life. Targeted at students in grades
3-5, the site features popular titles such as Because of Winn-Dixie
by Kate DiCamillio, now the subject of a major motion picture;
Louis Sachar's Holes; and Pam Munoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising.
Each exploration includes a Teacher's Guide that offers lessons
and activities to help teachers meet national standards, as
well as a Parent's Guide with advice on how to use the reading
club at home. Others features include an interactive comprehension
maze, a book bulletin board, and book-related prizes, such
as signed author photographs.
This holiday book buying guide, for children ages 0-9, will
spark a year-round love of reading.
An index of internet sites for authors and illustrators of
children's and young adults' books
A handful of authors and illustrators have changed the face
of children's literature with memorable, magical books that
appeal to readers both young and old. We set out to interview
each of them! Find out if Chris Van Allsburg is really as spooky
as his books, where Jon Scieszka gets his wacky ideas, and why
Patricia Polacco's warm family tales seem so real.
This is where students and teachers get guidance on essential reading strategies like evaluating, synthesizing, and inferring, through video clips and interactive web site components. The teacher's area of this site includes segments of classroom video for modeling effective instruction of the reading strategies, classroom activity ideas, and rubrics for evaluating student progress.
This site specifically built for kids includes background
information, timelines, interactive games and music activities
about jazz and its musical influences.
This version of KidsClick! is organized by Dewey Decimal Number.
There are multiple
search
tools including a page with dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Four online, interactive games with multi-level and multi-subject
choices to help students learn vocabulary words. Over 100
topics with 4,500+ words. Flash games include: Hangman, Word
Search, Language Match Game, Vocabulary Quiz.
Standards-based Internet content for the K-12th grade classroom
developed by experts: lesson plans; classroom activities and
materials to help with daily classroom planning.
The MLA Language Map is intended for use by students, teachers,
and anyone interested in learning about the linguistic and
cultural composition of the United States. The MLA Language
Map uses data from the 2000 United States census to display
the locations and numbers of speakers of thirty languages
and three groups of less commonly spoken languages in the
United States.
This site seems like a useful tool for determining the number
of people who speak different languages in Austin.
An all NEW Zoboomafoo "Animal Alphabet" game and
the "Paint by Number" Activity.
Extra, extra: Online database chronicles two centuries of newspaper
reporting -- K-12 schools and public libraries now have free
access to tens of millions of historical newspaper pages through
NewspaperARCHIVE.com. Students and library patrons can view,
save and print full-page newspapers dating from 1759 to 1977.
The Partnership for Reading offers information about the effective
teaching of reading for children, adolescents, and adults,
based on the evidence from quality research. The Partnership
invites you to explore this site for information on the research,
principles about reading instruction suggested by the research,
and products for parents, teachers, administrators, and policy-makers.
This site includes instruction on how to use TV programs in
the classroom, thousands of classroom activities and lesson
plans, education and technology news, links to other Web resources
and discussion guides.
Go
to Arts and Literature resources.
A Place of Our Own(and Los Niños en Su Casa
in Spanish) is a daily television series, a website, and an
extensive outreach program devoted to the unique needs of people
who care for children. Family, friends and neighbors –
everyone who takes care of young children – are child care
providers. Every interaction and every activity of these adults
with their charges provide valuable opportunities to help children
learn and grow.
A Place of Our Own shares ways for us all to help children
acquire cognitive, social, emotional and physical skills,
as well as nurture language and literacy development.
The series also responds to the needs and workplace realities
of people who spend their days caring for children by including
topics such as building partnerships with families, reducing
stress, and completing paperwork. A Place of Our Own’s
support for child care providers recognizes the importance
of their roles in the way children learn and develop. By supporting
these important people and providing them with the resources
they need, we better help our children prepare for school.
WGBH's award-winning educational
outreach department has produced a teacher's "Guide For
English Language Learners," with a lesson plan to complement
each episode of Postcards from Buster. The Teacher's Guide
supports and extends the language learning opportunities in
Postcards from Buster, offering strategies to use before,
during, and after viewing each episode.
The Teacher's Guide is designed for students in grades 2-4.
Open-ended activities and multilevel teaching strategies make
the lesson plans ideal for classrooms in which some students
are in the process of learning English and others are native
English speakers.
The site includes easily searchable resources for kids, parents
and teachers. Teacher guide activities
for
READING RAINBOW episodes are available at
gpn.unl.edu/rainbow/
Every year students grades K-3rd grade students are invited
to write and illustrate their own story to submit to the READING
RAINBOW Young Writers and Illustrators contest. Read previous
winning stories and download the rules and entry form for
this spring contest.
Need Resources for your classroom? Lesson plans, unit plans,
or guide materials for classroom discussions or class projects?
Do you want to preview an episode before purchasing? Need
to find the review books for an episode? Search the READING
RAINBOW database by subject area, keyword, or episode name!
Choose from a Viewer's Guide, a Family Guide (in both Spanish
and English), and a Teacher's Guide. Each of the guides provides
parents and teachers with friendly and sound information on
helping kids learn to read at home and at school.
Reading and Language Arts materials for teachers and students.
ReadWriteThink offers a collection of tools to support literacy
learning in the K-12 classroom. These interactive tools can
be used to supplement a variety of lessons and provide an
opportunity for students to use technology while developing
their literacy skills. ReadWriteThink is a partnership between
the International Reading Association (IRA), the National
Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the MarcoPolo Education
Foundation.
This Web site operates on the idea that in the year 1600 Shakespeare has stared a new theater company made up entirely of kids, and needs more players to fill the parts of his play "A Midsummer Night's Dream." There is resources for teachers, parents, and administrators interested in exploring the profound educational benefits of integrating Shakespeare into the K-8 Language Arts curriculum.
The Reading Rockets Family Guide is available in Spanish/English,
Hmong/English, and Somali/English. Guides include tips for helping
children get the most out of reading, pointers on working with
schools and teachers, ideas for using the public library and
valuable Web site addresses.
How to identify and help students with dyslexia and related
disorders.
A simple webquest for younger students in which each child
must choose a different story to read. Then they compare and
contrast the stories they read to find similarities and differences
in them. Finally they write their own tale in a similar style,
to share with the others in the group. Support is provided
by including links to fairytales, a downloadable checklist
for the compare and contrast task, a graphic organizer to
help write the story, and an evaluation criteria chart. Created
by Marcia Sullivan.
The Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts (TCRLA) has
a mission to enhance the knowledge, skills and practices of
educators in implementing the state curriculum and the Texas
Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).
This new site on pbskids.org expands kids' vocabulary through an engaging superhero action adventure. Can our heroine Word Girl thwart the villainous "Chuck, the Evil Sandwich Making Guy?" Find out through streaming video sements, interactive games, lesson plans and more.
KLRU Contact Information
Mary Alice Appleman
Assistant Director
Educational Services Dept.
E-mail: maappleman@klru.org
Voice: (512) 475-9051
