TOOLS for Literacy Website

Guided Reading Sites:

www.gardenofpraise.com/leaders.htm A great site that has biographies for kids – fairly easy reading level.
http://myschoolonline.com/page/0,1871,34898-119831-38-57086,00.html This page lists paired titles of fiction with non-fiction texts. Great resource of books to use in guided reading.
http://registration.beavton.k12.or.us/lbdb/ A database to search by author, title, and publisher when leveling texts according to guided reading levels.
www.lexile.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?view=ed&tabindex=2&tabid=16&tabpageid=55The teacher’s resource page for use of the Lexile framework. Scroll down to the Book lists to access thousands of titles aligned with Lexiles.
http://home.midwest.net/~cazueck/readingresponse.htm A wonderful site explaining how to set up reader response logs. Scroll down and click on “open-ended response sheet” and “expository text” to print out a list of possible prompts for the journals.
www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/predict.html#kinds Lists titles for different kinds of predictable books. "Predictable books make use of rhyme, repetition of words, phrases, sentences and refrains, and such patterns as cumulative structure, repeated scenes, familiar cultural sequences, interlocking structure and turn-around plots. These stories invite children to make predictions or guesses about words, phrases, sentences, events and characters that could come next in the story."
-- Mary Jett Simpson, in Reading Resource Book (372.41 Je Parents Shelf)
www.npatterson.net/reading.html A middle school teacher’s site including reading response questions, various roles for literature circles and more!
www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/teaching_techniques/strategies.html#oral Wonderful articles listing alternative strategies for working with students with learning disabilities – a great resource for a LD specialist or regular classroom teacher.
www.readinga-z.com/ A site that contains leveled texts, decodable texts, little chapter books, etc.- you can sample the books and then subscribe to download all their books.
www.mce.k12tn.net/units/units_with_books.htm This site has several units based on several different novels grades 3-6. Wonderful resource!!
www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/SCORE/cyberguide.html A California Education website that contains cyber guides to several books used in K-12 classrooms. Wonderful resource to tie language arts lessons with technology.
www.westga.edu/~kidreach/antguide2.html Anticipation Guides!! This site contains several anticipation guides already written to literature used in K-12 classrooms. Check this one out!!

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Poetry Sites:

www.geocities.com/Heartland/1133/poem_a_day.html Here is a site where you can sign up to receive a poem a day sent directly to your e-mail address.
www.poetry4kids.com/ Funny poems for older kids – grade 3 and up. They are wonderful!!
www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems.html A perfect site for all types of poems that fit different units especially for K-2.
www.gigglepoetry.com/poetryfun.cfm An interactive site where students can finish poems and several poems already put to scripts to use as a poetry reader’s theatre.
www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk/howto.htm A complete site for everything you wanted to know about how to write a poem. Incredible resource for teaching students 8-12 about how to write all types of poetry.
http://hometown.aol.com/Bvsangl/pocket.html A pocketful of rhymes – loads of poems, some poems are written in a riddle format. Students use the clues to guess who or what based on the clues (great for teaching inference). Also, there is a group of poems where students finish off the poem with their own idea to fit the rhyme (cool idea).
www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/poetry_patterns.htm This website has several different poetry patterns that could be used in a structured language writing sequence, including the name (bio) poem and more...
www.bbc.co.uk/education/listenandwrite/home.htm This is called the Listen and Write site where students can listen to audio poems by famous poets, read along and then rewrite the poems using different words. Students can create raps, similes and free verse poetry – highly motivating site!

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Reader's Theater:

www.lisablau.com/scriptomonth.html Monthly reader’s theatre scripts posted here. You can access the archives for previous scripts. Many scripts are of the expository genre.
www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm Another great site with several reader's theatre scripts that you can download. Several of the scripts go with popular children's literature.
www.scriptsforschools.com On this site you can purchase different reader's theatre scripts for all ages K-12. The scripts cost a nominal fee. There are several scripts that go with familiar folktales.

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Miscellaneous:

www.telusplanet.net/public/groenen/#Language Thousands of links for all different subject areas. You could spend a week looking through all the links – Check it out!
www.tooter4kids.com/classroom/themes_on_line.htm Several different themes (Frogs, Spiders, Oceans, Weather, Dinosaurs, Egypt, Color and Light, Life cycle of a Butterfly, Space to name a few) Click on each theme and you will find tons of online resources for teaching your units.
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/teaching.htm Teaching with the Web - a listing of themes by grade level – a wonderful resource.
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ Rubistar – access rubrics for several different content areas or create your own – great resource!!