Literacy Links

Reading Rockets is one of our favorite sources for news, research, practical advice and hands-on activities related to reading. You can spend hours looking through their well-organized lists of resources!

The Pragmatic Mom’s website and blog is a wonderful collection of recommendations and guidance based on her real-life experience working with reluctant and struggling readers. She has put together some great book lists based on age and gender, as well as by subject matter and format (graphic novels, etc.) which are very helpful when looking for additional book ideas.

We just love this post from Children’s Books Guide that provides an inspiring overview of the Top 100 Children’s Books of All Time! They also have several other great lists to refer to including Caldecott Medal Winners and the Dr. Seuss Books List.

Jenna Scribbles is a great blog to look at for resources related to struggling readers (although she posts content about other things as well). She has put together some wonderful book lists for different types of struggling or reluctant readers that are very useful.

Reading is Fundamental (RIF) has a nice website full of information and ideas. Their Literacy Resources page is a great place to look for activities, book lists, and research related to children’s literacy.

LiteracyNews.com is updated daily with a range of articles about changes to workplace and education systems, new book releases, and educational resources that help improve literacy and reading skills.

The Reading Tub website has over 1,600 book reviews that are designed to help adults match kids with just the right book by offering more than just a summary. Books can be searched by reader type (advanced, dormant/reluctant, remedial, middle grade), reading level (Flesch-Kincaid readability standards),  as well as subject, title and author.

National Children’s Literacy Website features lots of helpful materials including general literacy tips, advice on teaching children to read, educational activities, story-time tips, and links to additional resources.

The Reading Comprehension website through the University of Connecticut provides a wide range of literacy resources for children and adolescents. Resources include vocabulary instruction, text comprehension instruction, teaching strategies, and a list of websites offering comprehension practice.

This abcteach website has many resources for parents and teachers, including activities for core academic areas, theme units, reading comprehension, games and puzzles. Teacher resources include printable awards, mazes and recipes.

Bartleby.com publishes the most up-to-date collection of reference works, as well as classic works of reference, fiction, nonfiction and verse – all free of charge. In addition to basic reference works, such as dictionaries, thesauri, and books of quotations, the Web site includes the inaugural speeches of many U.S. presidents, the complete works of Shakespeare, and the 70-volume Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction. Many of the resources found here are supplemented by visual and audio multimedia elements, such as audio pronunciations of dictionary words and thousands of illustrations from maps and flags to detailed anatomical engravings.

The Ed Pubs website is intended to help help you identify and order U.S. Department of Education products. All publications are provided at no cost to the general public by the U.S. Department of Education.

Updated daily, Education News provides summaries and links to the top news articles and commentaries on education, from newspapers across the country and the world. A free online subscription allows you to receive a daily e-mail news update.

Education Week is America’s top educational newspaper. It features daily news and current and archived issues of Education Week and Teacher Magazine.

Education World features a search engine for educational Web sites only, news from USA TODAY, monthly site reviews, employment listings, and original content such as lesson plans, articles written by education experts, and information on how to make the best use of technology in the classroom.

Giggle Poetry is a great Web site to get your children excited about learning poetry! Several funny poems are included for your children to read, rate and create their very own. With simple and easy directions children will learn that they can write poetry too!

Ivy’s Dictionaries for Kids provides links to reference Web sites such as FactMonster, Bartleby.com, WordNet, Encarta, and Merriam-Webster. It also contains fun word tools, such as the Anagram Server, Tongue Twisters, the Visual Thesaurus, and many more.

Kids Domain contains a wealth of literary games for young children to play and is appropriate for children six years of age or older. This site will give your students a fun, active, and engaging way to reinforce their grammar, spelling, and vocabulary skills.

Designed to be used during literature circles or guided reading instruction, KidsReads.com contains the newest books for children of different ages and trivia games/crossword puzzles that go along with the books highlighted on the site. This site is useful when planning pre/during/post reading exercises to build vocabulary and comprehension.

The Merriam-Webster Language Center provides a dictionary, thesaurus, and a variety of word games and products.

The National Institute for Literacy is administered by the Secretaries of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services. Most of NIFL’s funds support programs and services designed to improve the quality of literacy programs nationwide. The NIFL Web site features program details and a variety of publications that you can download for free, including The Report of the National Reading Panel and Put Reading First.

Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. You can create and print customized word search, crossword and math puzzles using your own word lists. This is a great resource for helping students to prepare for spelling or vocabulary tests.

The Reading A-Z website provides instructional reading materials for K-5. Some of these materials include leveled texts, poetry, handwriting pages, and letter flashcards.

The Reading Lady offers resources for designing language arts instruction around the essential components of reading. Examples include comprehension, fluency, vocabulary and other strategies.

Starfall is a free website designed to teach children to read. Perfect for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade, it contains exciting interactive books and phonics games.

Check back soon! New links and articles will be added weekly.