Online activities for kids as well as info for teachers about the PBS series, Between the Lions, that promotes early elementary reading skills. Many of these programs can align with particular Word Work skills, such as the sound /er/ or /ch/. Thus, the TV shows can provide excellent TRI Extensions at instructional match.
An interactive read-aloud maximizes language and literacy learning but also requires the teacher's undivided attention (of course!). How can budding readers receive additional opportunities to hear and enjoy books--beyond the time they have with their teacher? Read To Me provides a cheery, bright webpage full of professional readings of children's books by actors and other notables. This beautiful, dynamic website will surely inspire your students to develop a love of books.
For optimal enrichment, the books could be checked out from the library and in students' hands as they watch and listen. Further, the Read To Me opportunity could follow a teacher's interactive read-aloud, as we know that repeated readings benefit students in multiple ways as well.
Yet another online storybook website has hit the scene! Try Barnes and Noble's Storytime Online site for over 10 great children's books read by the authors themselves, including Laura Numeroff and Tommie dePaola.
Spur advanced readers to enhance their vocabulary word knowledge as they make more and more donations of food to the United Nations World Food Program (at no cost to the student). Sound too good to be true? Check out the possibilities for your students at Free Rice.
Come here for access to thousands of read-along books for emergent and early readers. The site is called TarHeelReader and is actually designed for adolescent students just learning how to read. However, many of the books would be appropriate for younger students. The quality of the e-books is uneven, but you will have lots to choose from. The topics are numerous as well: plants to Native Americans to the alphabet. Overwhelmed by the variety? Click the box in the upper right hand corner of the initial book link to select your favorites. Children might be motivated to read and re-read with the help of the read-along voices, which also could be turned off.
Inspired by the PBS show Word Girl, these games are designed to build young students' vocabulary knowledge. While these games won't rapidly improve decoding and word identification, they will likely benefit students' oral language. The games may inspire some children to watch the educational, but enterataining, show at home. Generally more appropriate for 1st grade and older.
In an approach similar to Read To Me, the Screen Actors Guild Foundation provides Storyline Online, an online collection of actors reading famous picture books aloud. Fabulous for minimizing the reading and language gap. Find a favorite like Stellaluna there or discover something new such as No Mirrors in My Nana's House, the reading of which ends with a beautiful a capella song. Lovely!
Merriam-Webster's lush online visual dictionary can help your ELL learner or any learner expand his vocabulary knowledge. This site may be particular helpful for expanding on any content area knowledge, tied to a particular text or curricular area. K-1 students would likely benefit from exploring this site with the assistance of a teacher or older student.
Once your students have some access to the code, these read-along video songs are fun ways to squeeze in multiple re-readings. The creator has done us a great service, too, by revealing multi-syllable words chunk-by-chunk so that the child will more likely infer the patterns in the words. Children can watch them here at the readeez website or watch on vimeo.com by searching for "Readeez." Enjoy.