Literacy and Read-aloud sites - part of Good Sites for Kids!

"On or about" 1 September, we're doing away with the big "everything" section of Literacy. Everything will still be available in subsections via the matrix.

4Kids Games Various good math and language arts games. We found these games to be loud, fast, and good.

American Sign Language Learning Aid Link goes to the program page. Download the program here. This is the Windows version, there are others. "A set of programs designed to help the beginner ASL student learn ASL. It is composed of two parts: ASLLA-Dictionary and ASLLA-Fingerspeller. ASLLA-Dict allows the student to look up English->ASL sign. ASLLA-Fspell allows the beginner to practice seeing fingerspelling." Thanks to Andy Uehara, who wrote these programs and is deaf, if that matters to you. Cool. A short manual and other info may be found inside the unzipped program folder. Found it on Sourceforge.

Arcademic Skill Builders has math and word games ready to play online. You may recognize some games from the '80s and '90s here. Seem to remember playing them on TI99s and Apples, and they are still good for today! Worth your time to look these over.

Ask Doctor Grammar At last! Your grammar questions answered online! From questions of common useage to the exotic, it's probably in here.

Australian Slang Part of a larger kids site, learn why English speakers are divided by our common language.

BBC - Literacy Place Another good language arts site, with links to activities for different ages.

Baldwin Project is a large collection of public domain literature for children. This includes everything from about 1880 to 1922. There is some pretty good stuff in here, all online. One example is the original Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Kipling, with the original illustrations, part of the Jungle Book (which is also in here). Thousands of stories and hundreds of books are included. A real treasury! Warning: Be aware that the world 100 years ago was quite different. Some people would now label some of these works as racist, violent, too Christian, etc. You are the adult. Read them first. It's still a wonderful collection of "kid lit" and we are happy to include it here.

Between the Lions The site from the PBS Kids TV show. Full of language arts games and reading. Some very good phonics exercises here! We had fun teaching 1st graders with this site right after they watched the show on PBS.

Books and Stories from Kids' World. Ten literature and writing links, and six links to read-alouds.

BooBah from the UK. This site is for preschool folks. Lots of color and sound. Good fine motor skills training, using a mouse. Windows users will need to teach the difference between left and right clicking, though. Educational Freeware has an excellent writeup on them here, with screenshots.

Brain Teasers (NEW URL!) Here are 22 early learning games also suitable for Special Education use. Memory Attention games "are designed to exercise the processes involved in attending to and remembering information." Sound Discrimination games "work at training the basic fundamentals necessary for language, listening, and reading." Sounds like a novel and overdue approach. (and the games are kinda fun)

Children's Books Online - The Rosetta Project Said to be the largest collection of illustrated antique books online! Oodles of stories indexed by reading level. Click on To the library under the yellow Rosetta wagon.

Common Errors in English Usage "The aim of this site is to help you avoid low grades, lost employment opportunities, lost business, and titters of amusement at the way you write or speak." You should read over the intro page at least once before going on to the list of errors. The errors list page is alphabetized and very comprehensive. A very useful tool and an aid to better American English. We should all thank Professor Paul Brians of WSU Pullman.

CyberGuides From the site: " CyberGuides are supplementary, standards-based, web-delivered units of instruction centered on core works of literature. Each CyberGuide contains a student and teacher edition, standards, a task and a process by which it may be completed, teacher-selected web sites and a rubric, based on California Language Arts Content Standards."

Dance Mat Typing "Learn keyboard familiarity and finger positioning as you work your way through 12 different typing lessons. Animated characters and dances are triggered by your very own ten fingers." Four levels starting with new beginner. Another great BBC site.

Diagramming Sentences Once upon a time, all grade school students were taught this. Like Latin, it's coming back into style in the educational community. Benefits include a better understanding of sentence structure, better parsing, better writing, and better public speaking. This page contains a decent Power Point about diagramming.

Dolch Word Lists from Jan Brett. "11 full-sized, printable lists with Jan Brett artwork." Great Jan Brett art, 20 words per page.

Dolch words page from Education Oasis. "Dolch "Basic Sight Words" are the 220 most frequently occurring words in children's books, excluding nouns. Because many of the words do not follow decoding rules, they cannot be sounded out. Thus, they are learned by sight. Dolch sight words comprise 52-75 percent of all words found in children's books." These can be printed out for your use.

Sight Words from Quiz-Tree. It says the words! Realizing that some of our younger kids were memorizing their little easy reader books, we went looking for something online to reinforce their sight word knowledge. Shortly after clicking on this site's pre-primer word list, a teacher commented: "We need this site!" Each Sight Word is said aloud when it's clicked. We suggest having students try to say the word, then click on it. Part of a larger academic site, and free membership brings lots more goodies.

ESL/TOEFL pages from the British Council and the BBC. Excellent source for plans and ideas for teaching English as a foreign/second/new language. Good source for grammar basics, too.

Houghton-Mifflin's Education Place: Spelling and Vocabulary. Here are nine literacy games, each one with dozens of activites sorted by grade! Even if you don't use this publisher's textbooks, you must see all of these. Some kids even look for these games online after school!

Early Learning "This page features early learning websites for young toddlers and pre-schoolers. Fun ways to introduce your toddler to their abc, 123, shapes and colours with great games, downloads and flash cards." Also sites for older children. There are some wonderful things on here, many of which were new to us! Part of allkids, a fine learning & shopping site from the UK.

Free Children Stories "The goal of our site is to provide original stories, to promote free reading for children." This site features original, illustrated short stories, with new stories regularly added. New front page now breaks down stories by grade level. If you haven't seen this site lately, they now have 46 stories (July 2009.)

Free Rice "For each word you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger." "WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance... " Improves vocabulary! You may want to have one student stand by with a dictionary while another plays.

GCompris Our first app from France! Available in over 40 languages (see their main page for a list). "GCompris is an educational software suite comprising of numerous activities for children aged 2 to 10...Currently GCompris offers in excess of 80 activities and more are being developed. GCompris is free software, that means that you can adapt it to your own needs, improve it and, most importantly, share it with children everywhere." Computer discovery, color, sounds, memory, experiential, amusement, reading, mathematics, puzzles,telling time, money, and strategy games like macala. Some of these will really make a child think! Another SourceForge find.

GameGoo from Earobics. Loud, flashy games that teach literacy concepts: antonyms, synonyms, poetry concepts, spelling, letter-sound corespondence, word order, fact v. fantasy, letter recognition, alphabetic order, and following directions. Very good stuff. Thanks to Mercedes P. for finding this one.

Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples Ok, this site is a little above most elementary kids. Terms from Alliteration to Zeugma explained. It's a good source for language arts teachers, debate, or oral interp.

Grammar Gorillas from Funbrain is a good parts of speech game. It's sad when kids make it to high school and still do not know their parts of speech, especially with classic drills like this one around.

Guide to Grammar and Writing from Capital Community College, Hartford, Connecticut This site is for teachers and senior high and college students. Learn ALL about grammar here. (This is an) Excellent resource.

Johnnie's Story Page has plenty of links to web stories for grades K - 8, including a Spanish section.

Kids on the Net "10 Years Online!" A fine literacy site for kids and their teachers from all parts of the English speaking world. Site includes: Writing With a Difference, with online stories written by elementary and middle school classes, story starters, and ways to contribute; also a teacher section and more. Authors and Reading has links to children's lit authors for kids to check out as well as teacher links. Good, practical advice for beginning authors here. Tell Us About It lets kids give input. Teachers shows teachers the various parts of the site. All these sections have Activities, too. There are some wonderful things in this site, go investigate!

KidsSpell from KidsKnowIt. "Our fun, and high-paced spelling games help you practice your spelling words. You can pick from over 400 spelling lists, or create your own custom spelling list. All games will then use the spelling list you have loaded." About time we had a good spelling site around here.

Lakota Legends Links to 17 Native American/First Nations legends, or folk tales if you prefer. You won't see these anywhere else online. From the Acta Lakota Museum at St. Joseph's Indian School in Chamberlain, South Dakota. We have visited the Acta Lakota Museum and we recommend it to you. Chamberlain's on Interstate 90 at the Missouri River.

Language Guide Want to learn alphabets and vocabulary words from other languages? "LanguageGuide.org offers free sound integrated resources for learning languages." The site features pictures of various things with written and spoken names in several languages. Words are pronounced by volunteer native speakers. Current languages are English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. Sponsored by Language Guide, a registered non-profit organization, the site is free to use but they do ask for donations. Uses QuickTime.

Latin Lessons This webpage is a list of online Latin lessons and (mostly) online textbooks. We urge you to try some of them out by exploring this site. We looked at several and were impressed. Latin seems to be making a comeback so here is your chance to check it out. One of the many language pages offered by A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling, one of the sites on our Homeschool page.

Launch Pad: "Where Young Authors and Illustrators Take Off! is a new literary & arts magazine devoted to publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews and artwork by children ages 6-12." This looks pretty good. A place where young artists and writers can show off their work!

LearnEnglish Kids "LearnEnglish Kids is for children who are learning English. Find games, songs, stories and lots of activities - and learn English too." Games, printables, online songs, stories to read, more. There's also a good section for Teachers of English as a Second Language with lesson suggestions using this site.

Letter Blocks from ABCya! Similar to Bookworm but no fires, just less time to finish each round. Good for spelling and vocabulary.

Literacy Net This is a great interactive site for learning letters, numbers, shapes, and colors! Animated, with sound. Also in German, French, and Spanish!

Madlib Stories from A Girls World. Nine different madlibs let you create your own stories where you are the star!

Meet Me at the Corner, "Virtual Field Trips for Kids, is a dynamic, interactive site, which encourages individual expression and participation through video submissions from children worldwide, featuring their special corner of the world. Through these video pod casts we hope to create a community of children, who learn the art of self-expression and storytelling through video." Great idea and wonderful site!

Minisebran - Freeware For Toddlers. This is from Marianne Wartoft, a very intelligent Swede who has also created the excellent ABC Sebran and Seterra (best geography freeware EVER for kids AND adults!) among others. "Minisebran is a free suite of early learning games for kids 2-6 years old . It includes eight different exercises, including doodle drawing exercises and very simple games to get to know the numbers and letters, and learning to use the keyboard." We've played with it, it's fun! It would be useful for K - 1 as well as some special needs, and good for training fine motor skills.

Myths, Stories, and Art from Windows to the Universe. "Objects in the sky and other natural phenomena have inspired people throughout the ages. Browse our collection of myths, folk tales, and stories of many types about the Earth and sky. Check out artwork, poetry, books, and movies that portray the natural world. Or take a guided tour that tells the tale of a particular scientific topic." Has three levels: elementary, intermediate, and advanced.

NewzMash "Providing young minds with today's headline news." Kid safe news in an attractive format. "Our site contains global news that is interesting, informative, and is "completely" free of any news that we, as parents or adults, would not be comfortable exposing to our kids...We created this site as a safe haven for our children, and children of other parents who have the same safety concerns as we do. This site allows pre-teens and young adults view current news and information, without parents worrying about their safety on the internet." There has long been a need for a site like this.

Owl & Mouse Educational Software Great phonics software that reminds us of the old MECC Apple games of the 1980s. Free software for you to download and install, or play online. Their plug: "Help your child learn with games, software and educational activities from Owl & Mouse Educational Software. Early reading software—phonics software, alphabet games, and Dolch sight words in a fairy tale story. All of it FREE!'

Phonics from Sadlier-Oxford Educational Publishing. Huge! site. Great online practice games for preshool through grade 6. Covers phonics, sight words, rhyming, vowel and consonant blends, digraphs, beginning and ending consonants, dipthongs, suffixes, contractions, prefixes, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, dictionary use, root words, complete sentences, syllables. All this from one start page that uses popups for each activity - so don't have popups blocked.

PIZZAZ! People Interested in Zippy and ZAny Zcribbling! "PIZZAZ! is dedicated to providing simple creative writing and oral storytelling activities with copyable (yes, copyable!) handouts for use with students of all ages. Permission is given to use these resources for in-class, non-profit use only." Site is in sections by genre - 11 different types of poetry, eight fiction activity links, other activities and resources. Also a Teacher section with links to sites like TESOL/ESL and Deborah Healy's Tech Tips.

Poisson Rouge A delightful hands-on exploration site from France, just one site of many brought to you by Kids Activities from allkids, a fine learning site from the UK. Just all sorts of fun things to click on here.

Rats from Learning Planet Different difficulty levels for pre-K to 6th grade. Covers shapes, letters, vowels & consonant, and parts of speech. Use the arrow keys to move the basket, try to keep under the bird.

Root Words Quiz "You make new words from a root word by adding a prefix or suffix. Test your knowledge of root words in this quiz." Good online quiz with three levels for grade 3 and up. From BBC Skillwise.

Roxie's ABC Fish is a computer version of the venerable children's card game. Practice upper and lower case letters, numbers, and a surprise music composition program at the end! Thanks to its publisher, Latticework Software (thanks guys), Roxie is now freeware!

Sesame Street Still helping little ones, since the 1960s. Their site has oodles of activities about letters, numbers, coloring, music, eating healthy, and much more. Let kids click and explore! Some activities require Java or Flash.

Sight Words from Quiz-Tree. Realizing that some of our younger kids were memorizing their little easy reader books, we went looking for something online to reinforce their sight word knowledge. Shortly after clicking on this site's pre-primer word list, a teacher commented: "We need this site!" It says the words aloud, too. So, here it is. Part of a larger academic site, and free membership brings lots more goodies.

Spelling Match from Houghton-Mifflin. Elementary school spelling game makes kids match words with their missing letters. Indexed by grade level.

StarFall Fantastic phonics-intensive site for pre-k through second grade. Stories, movies, and games! Progressive levels let kids read or be read to. Every time we go to this site with K-2 kids, we find something new and great! This site WILL keep those busy little brains going for a whole computer lab session! Thanks, Tia.

Vocabulary Workshop Online from Sadlier-Oxford Educational Publishing. Six levels of vocabulary with 300 words per level. Click on a word and and hear it pronounced in QuickTime. Two additional levels feature Hangman, Word Search, Crosswords, and Multiple Choice. Section for Families and another one for Teachers. All this from one start page that uses popups - so don't have popups blocked.

Wacky Web Tales from Eduplace (Houghton Mifflin Education Place.) About 100 online mad libs! This is great for kids to improve their literacy and have fun at the same time.

Web English Teacher Project based learning K-12. Language arts only. Very many, perhaps hundreds, of lesson plans and related ideas for the entire language arts spectrum.

Web Word Find from Houghton-Mifflin has 21 online word searches. The first three are on the front page, click More Word Finds in the lower left corner to see the rest.

Webster's Online Dictionary with Multilingual Thesaurus Translation "Earth's largest dictionary with 90 modern and 10 ancestral languages."

Word Builder from Houghton-Mifflin has spelling and phonics activities for grades 1 - 6. From 27 - 30 activities per grade level are listed, matched to textbook levels. Really good information here, of increasing difficulty to match progress through the school year.

Word Girl from PBS Kids. Vocabulary builder for upper elementary. Funny! We especially liked the Adventures of Word Girl and the activities in Huggie's House of Fun!

WriteSite An interactive language arts and journalism project for middle schools, developed by ThinkTVNetwork, Dayton, Ohio.

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Dolch Word Lists from Jan Brett. "11 full-sized, printable lists with Jan Brett artwork." Great Jan Brett art, 20 words per page.

English for early years These are lessons in letter sounds/phonemes and sentence structure (how to make a sentence show sequence of events.) Downloadable zip files that make folders containing the lesson, which will then start your browser. Interactive Flash lessons that use your browser. From Education Services Australia and Curriki!

Literacy Net This is a great interactive site for learning letters, numbers, shapes, and colors! Animated, with sound. Also in German, French, and Spanish!

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Ask Doctor Grammar At last! Your grammar questions answered online! From questions of common useage to the exotic, it's probably in here.

Common Grammar and Spelling Mistakes "Effective written communication relies on correct grammar and spelling. Avoiding common misspellings and grammatical errors ensures that your writing is clear, precise, and comprehensible. Readers often do not notice good grammar because the text is easily understood and enjoyable to read, but they do notice confusing grammatical errors that force them to re-read text and fumble for the author’s meaning. Punctuation equally affects the readability of a text: a misplaced comma or apostrophe can change the meaning of a sentence, often in confusing ways. Correct grammar and spelling makes a positive impression on readers, which is particularly important in business and academic communications." Thanks go to Kristen McNeill, English teacher, for emailing us about this site.

ESL/TOEFL pages from the British Council and the BBC. Excellent source for plans and ideas for teaching English as a foreign/second/new language. Good source for grammar basics, too.

Grammar Girl Why, oh why, didn't we discover this site sooner? Grammar tips at her site or via free podcast. High school and up, very concise and accurate. She does it for a living. As one teacher's blog says: "I have added her to my itunes and get a weekly updated podcast for free. You should do the same." Listen to the audio or read the weekly tips, you'll be hooked. Thanks to Laura Mazzola and Mignon Fogarty

SpellingCity Suddenly this is very popular in our local elementary schools! This very impressive site lets anyone type in spelling words and be tested on them! Type in anywhere from five to 15 words. The test says the words and/or uses each word in a sentence! Nice certificate to print out, too. The batch entry option lets you enter long lists of words copied from a word processor. Kids can use this site for free, adults are urged to sign up. We like it. Going in Literacy > Grammar.

Spelling it Right - Learn How to Spell Confidently. "Free printable worksheets, help and advice from an experienced English teacher and examiner. This site is for: parents who are concerned about their children's spelling and are keen to help them improve; adults who find spelling difficult and want to learn to spell correctly; teachers who need some online printable spelling worksheets to supplement their own materials; and includes: advice about how to deal with problems and become a better speller; a collection of free printable worksheets, each comprising a complete lesson designed to test and teach spelling skills; games, puzzles and quizzes to help encourage an interest in spelling." OK, so Americans will have to drop a "u" once in a while, this is an excellent site that does what it says. Great syllable and consonant blend practice (!) and some good advice on teaching spelling. We want to thank Roger Smith for his site!

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WriteSite An interactive language arts and journalism project for middle schools, developed by ThinkTVNetwork, Dayton, Ohio.

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4Kids Games Various good math and language arts games. We found these games to be loud, fast, and good.

BBC - Literacy Place Another good language arts site, with links to activities for different ages.

Games for Kids in the Stacks from Scholastic lets kids play arcade games related to some of their favorite books! Partial list of books/series with games in this site: 39 Clues, Bone, Deltora, Dinosaur Cove, Goosebumps, Holes, and Captain Underpants.