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Literacy and books (print and electronic)

• Assessment for reading and writing: great online student 6-trait assessments, searchable by grade level, in Spanish and English: www.nwrel.org/assessment/lessonplans.php
• Audible.com: Our students must be exposed to language. One way to 'bathe' them is through audiobooks. Students may listen on an ipod or mp3 player (even one earbud in each person's ear, let a pair of students listen, share, pause, and discuss!): http://www.audible.com/education
• Audio Books for FREE: believe it or not, there are almost too many sites to name. Go to http://www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/libraries/ebook_libraries_list.htm for direct links to MANY free audiobook sites. One is in fact called audiobooksforfree.com, www.audiobooksforfree.com/screen_main.asp and another great one, http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video. For American History teachers: www.freeaudio.org
• Balancing Reading and Language Learning, Cappellini, M '05, Stenhouse/IRA
• Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, Second edition, Morrow, Gambrell, & Pressley, Eds. ’03 Guilford Press
• Between the Lions: the site for the PBS show, has video clips, games, & stories
• Book groups online: LibraryThing and Shelfari
• Booklists & sources - the following are great resources to pair students with text:
  • Amaznode: type in a title or author and it'll suggest related books students might like
  • American Library Association: http://www.ala.org
  • Balancing Reading and Language Learning, Cappellini, M '05, Stenhouse/IRA: the appendices include not only great forms, but also several great books lists: http://www.stenhouse.com/
  • Books in a Series: http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/serieslist.html.
  • Choices booklists: http://www.reading.org/resources/tools/choices.html
  • e-book libraries: http://www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/libraries/ebook_libraries_list.htm
  • Growing up Latino in the United States: http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/alscresources/booklists/GrowingUpLatino.htm
  • How to choose the best multicultural books: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/multicultural.htm
  • Multicultural children’s literature: http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/multicultural.htm
  • Multicultural resources for children: http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/multipub.htm
  • The Reading Room (books for children and young adults): http://www.sldirectory.com/libsf/booksf/kidsbooks.html#id3177650874
  • When kids can't read: what teachers can do: A guide for teacher 6-12, Beers, K. '03, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH: has a great list of books for struggling readers, including a list of easy-reading sports series
  • Bringing the Outside In, Kajder, S '06, Stenhouse, explores using digital storytelling to teach literacy.
• Building Academic Language: essential practices for content classrooms, Zwiers, J, '08, Jossey-Bass Teacher/IRA, ISBN 9780787987619
• CBeebies: literacy activities, games, songs, & stories for young beginning readers
• Childtopia: over a thousand literacy activities in multiple languages, including English
• CNN student news: for a searchable souce for news for kid
• Computer-read text: Fort Vancouver Regional Library (scroll down and click on link to Tumblebooks to enter the site for free), Speakaboos, Childtopia (listening and reading comprehension link), TarHeel Reader, CBeebies, Goodnight Stories, KizClub, Learning to Read, Listen and Read, Mightybook, National Geographic Young Explorer , Scholastic Clifford books, Storylineonline, Starfall, Woodlands Junior School, LilFingers , Storyplace
• Critical Literacy, Mclaughlin & DeVoogd, ’04, Scholastic, ISBN 0439628040
• Current events: PlaytheNewsGame-outstanding-students read news on world issues and determine their positions and predictions, CNN student news: for a searchable souce for news for kids, Time for Kids: FREE current events, social studies, graphic organizers, mini lessons, worksheets for students in grades K-6. A great source for informational text at various reading levels, UpfrontMagazine by Scholastic, SimpleEnglishNews and SpecialEnglishNews - both are free and with news searchable by category
• Database of award-winning children’s literature: www.dawcl.com/search.asp
• The Digital Reader using E-books in K-12 Education: A guide to using e-books in the classroom: Cavanaugh, TW, 2006 (Am I the only one wondering why this book is not available in an E-book format?) Link to his website: www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/index.htm
• E-books for kids- Free access to many story books, read online in English, French, Spanish, and Chinese -The following link will take you to Fort Vancouver's Regional Library site, then scroll down and select 'Tumblebooks": http://www.fvrl.org/kids/index.cfm , and the NYPublicLibrary. Also find e-book libraries - a comprehensive list: http://www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/libraries/ebook_libraries_list.htm
• E-books Free downloadable software: http://www.powells.com/ebookstore/palm_download.html
• E-books: Where to buy? http://www.ereader.com/ , http://www.powells.com/ebookstore/ebooks.html , and http://cyberread.com/Shop/software.php
• EText, free leveled and printable text for young children see http://www.saskschools.ca/~ebooks/ and Printable booklets ; for older readers: University of Virginia Library and http://www.drscavanaugh.org/ebooks/libraries/ebook_libraries_list.htm for direct links to MANY sites, Also see: Free Books: http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm#2
• The ELT grammar book: a teacher-friendly reference guide, Firsten, R. & Killian, P. '05, Alta Book Publisher
• Freereading.com: this is a wiki, and is open source and free. It's stated goal is to support early literacy either to complement or supplant another reading program. It is definitely grounded in a heavily phonics-based methodology and philosophy. It will need to be liberally supplemented with a more balanced literacy perspective. www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
• Good Reads - an online book group/social book discussion site: www.goodreads.com - Free but you must register to use it.
• Goodnight Stories. Free, with options to read, hear, see, decide the ending to, fill-in, or finish a story.
• Graphic novels: commentary, recommendations, blogs, all dedicated to graphic novels (which are of course extra supportive for ELLs) - www.noflyingnotights.com/
• Graphic novels - how to teach with them- Adventures in Graphica: using comics and graphic novels to teach comprehension 2-6, Thompson '08, Stenhouse to view online and/or order.
• Graphix: Scholastic's label for graphic novels (aka comic books) http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/
• Handwriting practice worksheets. Free
• High-frequency words for spelling and reading: Fry, Kress, & Fountoukidis ’93, The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, 3rd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
• Improving Comprehension with Think-Aloud Strategies ’03 J.D. Wilhelm, Scholastic
• Innovative Approaches to Literacy Education: using the internet to support new literacies: Eds. Karcher, R et al., ’05, IRA, ISBN 0872075559
• International Children’s Digital Library: a laudable international effort to scan as many books as possible, in as many languages as possible, into cyberspace for FREE access by anyone with an Internet connection to enjoy: http://www.icdlbooks.org/
• International Reading Association: http://www.reading.org
• Kidsclick: created by librarians to link students to appropriate web resources and information, popular books, and so on: http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!/
• KizClub: free stories are read, while text is highlighted
• Leap frog products: electronic notebooks that allow students to use headphones and drag a stylus across the text, which is read to them via the battery-powered notebook. http://www.leapfrogstore.com/
• Learner English: a teacher's guide to interference and other problems, Swan M. & Smith, B. eds., '01, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England
• Learning to Read: by the Reading is Fundamental people, free and reads stories, highlighting the text as it does so (also has stories in Spanish)
• Learningpage: Free worksheets, thematic units, etc. Sister site to readinga-z, writinga-z, sciencea-z, etc.
• Leveled books in a free searchable database; also: http://battlecreekel.spps.org/Guided_Reading_Leveled_Library.html
• Librarian's Internet Index: this searchable database will help students to find invisible web pages pertinent to their research: http://lii.org/
• Library Thing: maybe if we could get kids talking about self-selected books with other people, anywhere in the world, they would be more motivated to read books. This site is most wonderful- www.librarything.com/.
• Listen and Read, free site by Scholastic that reads non-fiction books to students on topics related to science and social studies
• Literacy Matters: free lesson plans for teaching literacy in the content areas
• The Literacy Project (google scholar): collecting information about teaching literacy, book search, videos, school blogging tools, and discussion groups: http://www.google.com/literacy
• Literacy program self-assessment tool by Thinkfinity: a guide to understand where your program excels, and where you may seek improvement. Available for early literacy, elementary grades, adolescent, and adults
• Literacy work stations/centers ideas for grades K-2. Free list
• Literacy Work Stations ’03 ISBN 1571103538(for grades K-2 and Practice With Purpose ’05 ISBN 15771103953 for grades 3-6) by Debbie Diller, Stenhouse Publications, Portland, ME, excellent and clear instructions for setting up effective practice stations for literacy and writing, www.stenhouse.com
• Literature map- type in and author and see a cloud of related authors students might like
• Longman language activator - Thesaurus, 2nd edition , '02, Pearson Education, White Plains, NY
• Mightybook computer-read stories
• National Geographic Young Explorer: entire books & magazines free to browse online
• Onesens: free - you can type in words for a sentence, they'll show up mixed up around the screen, and you can add images, video, and music
• Poetry - Poets.org: This is a poetry-lovers paradise, which provides lesson plans as well as free audio recordings of interviews and poetry readings: allpoetry (in which students may post their own writing for free), Blast writing, free, by the BBC allows students to author and upload poems, and Blast writing poetry tool allows students to add images and sounds to poetry, and Making Connections Through Poetry
• Printable booklets: free, some have sight words, predictable text. Quite extensive. Great resource for beginning readers.
• Questia: world’s largest online library: www.Questia.com
• Quotationsbook: great source for free quotes in a searchable database.
• Read Right: a revolutionary new program for struggling readers that's having huge success across ages and demographic groups: http://www.readright.com/index.html
• Read.Write.Think: a free collaboration between the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English with many wonderful lessons plans and student resources
• Readability program: FREE program in which you paste in the text and it will run a readability assessment for you, including average number of words per sentence, total words in sample, total sentences, words not matching the Dale Familiar 3000 word list, Dale-Chall readability index, raw score, and grade level. It uses Dale-Chall in grades 4 and up, and Spache in grades 1-3. OKAPI!
• Reader’s Theatre: This is a great source of free readers’ theatre scripts, which are effective in building fluency and expression in reading: http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/ ; also see WebEnglishTeacher for information regarding Reader's Theatre: www.webenglishteacher.com/rt.html
• Reading A-Z website
• Reading from Scratch - a site dedicated to teaching Dyslexic learners, has a list of English spelling rules: http://www.dyslexia.org/spelling_rules.shtml
• Reading Quest: ostensibly for social studies, but dedicated to helping students to understand informational text: www.readingquest.org/home.html
• Reading Rants: out-of-the-ordinary teen booklists and blog makes reading hip - www.readingrants.org/
• Reading revolution: Fletcher's Place utilizes kinesthetics, visuals, manipulatives, and games to teach reading: http://readingrevolution.com/CLASSROOM/
• Reading Rockets: links, articles, blog posts, blogroll, video interviews - great site: www.readingrockets.org/
• Reading with Meaning: teaching comprehension in the primary grades, Miller, D. ’02, Stenhouse Publication, Portland, ME
• Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for K-12 Teachers, Peregoy and Boyle, Longman/Addison Wesley ‘01 ISBN 0-8013-3249-4
• Scholastic: free resources, Clifford read-alouds, games, printables, videos
• Something Special painting game is for primary students. The simple story stops occasionally and allows them to use the drawing tools to contribute to the story- very clever and great for teaching beginning story composition.
• Sources of text for older struggling readers: IL = interest level, GL= grade level
  • Fast Track Reading, Wright Group: www.wrightgroup.com IL 4-8, GL 1-6+; high interest with vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and phonics components
  • High Noon Books: www.academictherapy.com/ 1-800-422-7249, decoding and comprehension, IL 3-12, GL 1-4+
  • Oxford University Press for English language learning: www.oup.com/us/esl bilingual, English, and picture dictionaries, readers, workplace English, DVDs and videos, grammar exercises, etc.
• Speakaboos, free stories, rhymes, lullabies, fables, etc. with closed captions and the ability to record text, for younger children
• Starfall: a free website that teaches letters and reads books to kids
• Storylineonline: actors reading books and shows the print. Free.
• Strategies That Work 2nd edition, ‘06 S. Harvey & A. Goudvis, Stenhouse
• Storyplace-the free online children's digital library, in Spanish and English
• TarHeel Reader: voice-recognition software reads the books to students. E signifies a book appropriate to all, C is for adolescent readers
• TPR storytelling
  • Action English Pictures, Maxine Frauman-Prickel and Noriko Takahashi :TPR storytelling sequences that include photocopy-able pictures, word banks, grammar, pronunciation, and comprehension activities.
  • Live Action English: Has multi-step TPR stories. Can be used for receptive, speaking, reading, and writing; good for beginners and early intermediate English learners.
  • Operations in English, Gayle Nelson & Thomas Winters: 55 sequence activities. This uses more or less a TPR storytelling/instructional sequence format.
• The Teaching Reading Sourcebook, Honig et al, ’00, Arena Press, ISBN 1-57128-119-3
• Time for Kids: FREE current events, social studies, graphic organizers, mini lessons, worksheets for students in grades K-6. A great source for informational text at various reading levels
• To understand: new horizons in reading comprehension, Keene, Ellin Oliver, '08, Heinemann
• Tumblebooks: books are animated and read to the students, with active highlighting throughout the process. The audio may be toggled off in order to allow students to practice reading fluently, keeping up with highlighting. Go to the Fort Vancouver Regional Library site or the NewYorkPublicLibrary site, scroll down to Tumblebooks, and that's the portal into the site.
• TV411- Tune in to Learning - free site with lessons for high school and adult learners on critical reading: http://www.tv411.org/index.shtml
• Universal design sites, such as http://intersect.uoregon.edu/, Thinking reader at www.tomsnyder.com, or Intellitalk at www.intellitools.com, include universal access through text modification.
• Universal Digital Library: Their stated goal is to have all books in digital form, to be available for anyone to read, anywhere in the world. They've already surpassed their first goal of one million books, and are still going strong: http://www.ulib.org/index.html
• Visually impaired and disabled students: www.bookshare.org
• What’s Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English? A Professional Development Program,’04, Kauffman & Franco, CAL and Delta Systems, ISBN 1-887744-83-5
• When kids can't read: what teachers can do: A guide for teacher 6-12, Beers, K. '03, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH
• Wikijunior: a wiki with books on various topics geared for students 8-11 years old. Not only is this a source of text for our students to read, it's also a good forum for meaningful editing opportunities. It's a wiki. Let's collectively makes these books better: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior
• Woodlands Junior School has harvested many great online stories read - portal page into great free text
• Words, Words, Words: teaching vocabulary in grades 4-12: Allen, ’99, Stenhouse, ISBN 1571100857: an excellent but accessible reference on pragmatic teaching of vocabulary
• Writing: WritingFix, Writing Matters (ezine), Writing Fun Great Source, or EssayPunch to be guided through the writing process. TheWritingTeacherhas a great blog. Scholastic's Create a Tale is a fun and simple early writing tool for younger children. Bitesize English writing for heavily scaffolded younger student writing activities and information. Bookr to write using photos from Flickr, and Tikatok for a more complicated online publishing company (free if online, only costs when order a printed, bound copy).
• Zoo-phonics (in English or Spanish) Bradshaw et al, (1-800-622-8104) A basic phonics program that teaches phonics through movement and animal characters