Top-Ten Resources

Top Ten Web Resources for Balanced Literacy and Technology Teachers

For educators just getting started in using technology to support their balanced literacy programs, the following websites offer a wide variety of rich teacher and student resources.

Background and Planning Resources for Teachers

1. Reading Online
http://www.readingonline.org
While this online journal/web site is not specific to balanced literacy, it is one of the best resources on teaching literacy through technology out there right now. The Electronic Classroom section lists specific teaching ideas from researchers and teachers; throughout the site, there is a vast variety of resources including monthly website reviews, new research articles, transcripts or articles based on presentations at conferences and many other things. The Reading Online site is sponsored by the International Reading Association.

2. Balanced Literacy
http://www.thekcrew.net/balancedliteracy.html
The K Crew has been using balanced literacy since 1996 and has amassed a wealth of information and ideas on their site. The pages are organized according to the components of balanced literacy as well as center ideas they have used. There are also summaries of good professional development books and price information from Amazon if you would like to add to your professional library on literacy instruction.

3. Carol Hurst
http://www.carolhurst.com/index.html
This site from Carol Hurst contains reviews of books for children as well as ideas for ways to use literature in the classroom.

4. Read, Write, Think
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/
This excellent website maintained by the International Reading Association contains a hefty database of lessons that make use of technology to support balanced literacy. The ever-increasing set of lessons is classified according to grade (from K – 12). One example of a technology-enhanced shared reading activity for K -2, is Gingerbread Phonics, which can be found at http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=114

Technology Tools

5. Inspiration Software
http://www.inspiration.com
http://www.inspiration.com/freetrial/index.cfm
This is the home of Inspiration and Kidspiration mindmapping software, a useful tool for analyzing reading material and planning student writing. A free trial version of this classroom-friendly resource can be downloaded at this site.

6. Trackstar
http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/index.jsp
This site allows teachers and students to make the most of online lessons and activities. This tool helps organize collect ions of web sites. Users can construct their own “tracks” or use those created by others.

 7. Visual Thesaurus
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online/
This excellent tool offers a dictionary and a thesaurus and can be a powerful tool for independent writing.

Material for Students

8. PBS Kids
http://pbskids.org/
This site contains an array of stories and games associated with much-loved books and PBS programs for early readers. Books addressed here include the Clifford series, the Arthur series and the Berenstain Bears among others. The Reading Rainbow area contains children’s audio book reviews.

9. Kid Pub
http://www.kidpub.org/kidpub/
This is one of the oldest and largest databases of kids’ work on the Internet. Since 1995, this site has given kids a space to publish their writing, find out more about being a writer, and even given awards to the best stories. Currently there are more than 42,000 stories linked to this site! Of particular interest is the Schools area, which features the work of students by school. Appropriate for any grade that publishes written work.

10. KidsSpace
http://www.kids-space.org/story/story.html
This is a subsection of the enormous KidsSpace site, which has stories and literacy information for kids and teachers. This subsection, called StoryBook, lists stories written by kids for kids; in this section, they can read the work of other students around the world.

Other Student Resources to Investigate (We couldn’t resist)

Kids Click
http://www.kidsclick.org/
Web search for kids by librarians

Starfall
http://www.starfall.com/
Learning-to-read site focused on comprehension and phonics.

Lil’ Fingers
http://www.lil-fingers.com/storybooks/index.html
This online site contains simple stories for students to read on their own.

Bank Street Literacy Guide
http://www.bankstreet.edu/literacyguide/early.html
The guide contains an overview of what to expect from Emergent, Early, Early Fluent and Fluent readers.  Appropriate strategies for each developmental level and sample lessons and games are provided. This is an excellent source for teachers, parents and care providers wishing to understand the continuum of skill development.