reading – Page 9 – iLearn Technology

Wordly Wise 3000

January 15, 2009January 15, 2009Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2753 views

What it is: Wordly Wise 3000 is a vocabulary curriculum that can be purchased, any time I see a website mentioned as part of curriculum, I always take a look. While the Wordly Wise 3000 curriculum costs, the website activities are free! Students are told to choose their vocabulary book (I just choose the appropriate grade level). Students can go through a word list that says each word, gives a picture, the part of speech, the definition, and a sentence using the word. They can read this information or have it read to them. Then they review the word with a mini quiz review. The audio from the website can be downloaded and saved on a CD to be used in class without computers. After students have learned the words, they can play games that reinforce the vocabulary learned. Games include concentration, flashcards, hangman, matching synonyms, and word searches. Wordly Wise 3000 has vocabulary units for second through twelfth grade.

How to integrate Wordly Wise 3000 into the classroom: Wordly Wise 3000 is a great site for your auditory learners to learn vocabulary. It is also a great addition to ESL and ELL classrooms, the written and auditory output is a nice feature. The site combines auditory, visual, pictures, and hands on games making differentiated instruction for vocabulary easy. Wordly Wise 3000 can be used individually by students, as a vocabulary reading center, or for whole class instruction with a projector or interactive whiteboard. Wordly Wise 3000 can help build a vocabulary base for your struggling readers. This would be a great site to use for learning a new word or two each day as a class. Studies show that students who have a solid vocabulary base to pull from are better readers.

Tips: I have not seen the actual Wordly Wise 3000 curriculum but based on their web activities, it looks like it may be a good one to check out.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Wordly Wise 3000 in your classroom.

Readicide

January 13, 2009Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2571 views

What it is: Readicide is a new ebook from Kelly Gallagher about how schools are killing the love of reading. It is being made available here Jan. 13 and 14 as a free download. I downloaded Readicide earlier today and am loving it. The ebook reminds me of what made me love reading, the times when I hated reading, and how my students feel about reading. It is inspiring and may just give you the jolt you need to shake up your reading program and make your classroom the place where students fall in love with reading again (or the very first time).

How to integrate Readicide into the classroom: Download Readicide ASAP! Then send to your administration and fellow teaching staff to read. Open up communication about your reading program at the next staff meeting, be critical. Lets start a reading revolution!!

Tips: Download today while the ebook is free 🙂 I vote “readicide” to be considered as a new word for Webster to add to the dictionary.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think of Readicide and your ideas for bring a love of reading into your classroom.

Northpole.com

December 9, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2348 views

What it is: Northpole.com is a fun Christmas themed website for kids pre-k through 3rd grade. Students can work on fine motor skills with activities like connect the dots, connect the dashes, and mazes. You will also find great Christmas time activities to help build letter recognition, sound recognition, vocabulary, numbers, ordinal numbers, right and left, and size. Students can practice writing skills with a letter to Santa or a holiday postcard. Northpole.com has printable awards and diplomas for students who complete the activities. Northpole.com also has a number of online Christmas stories that students can read on their own or have read to them. My favorite feature are the personalized stories. Students fill in their name and some other information and Northpole.com creates a story with the student as the main character that they can immediately read online!

How to integrate Northpole.com into the classroom: Use the outstanding activities on Northpole.com during the holiday season to teach and reinforce fine motor skills, alphabet, numbers, reading, and writing. Set up your classroom computer as a personalized story generator. Throughout the week, allow students to read a story about themselves during silent reading time.

Tips: The teacher page at Northpole.com gives a great break down of the site so you can find exactly what you are looking for.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Northpole.com in your classroom.

Tools for Educators

December 5, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2514 views

What it is: Tools for Educators is an awesome site, so awesome that I am surprised I haven’t run across it sooner! Tools for educators offers templates for teachers to create their own board games, word searches, dice, cross word maker, bingo cards, domino maker, spelling and reading worksheets, handwriting worksheets, certificate maker, vocabulary handouts, listening test worksheets, and word bank worksheet. All templates are extremely customizable, fast and easy to use. And did I mention it is all free?!

How to integrate Tools for Educators into the classroom: Tools for Educators is obviously a great site to use to customize worksheets, games, etc. based on your classroom curriculum. Even though the site is geared toward educator use, I have had students use it last week to create their own custom board games, dice, and dominoes. The students loved creating games, rules, and question cards for their games (they made these with a Pages template I created). We have a parent day where families can come and play the games the students have created. So much fun! Definitely check out this site, I know you will be inspired to create something wonderful!

Tips: There are a lot of Google ads along the right side of the screen. When using with students, use the opportunity to teach them about web advertisements.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Tools for Educators in your classroom.

Jump Start 3-D

December 3, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1995 views

What it is: I got the tip off for Jump Start 3-D from a tweet by Kevin Jarrett (@kjarrett) the other night and have been having a great time exploring ever since. Jump Start is the popular software title that makes educational home and school software for pre-k through 2nd grade. Jump Start 3-D is a highly interactive virtual world for kids. Each location within the Jump Start 3-D world offers fun learning adventures focused on math, reading, and critical thinking skills. Students start out by creating a character avitar that represents them in the virtual world. Registration is free on Jump Start 3-D for access to the basic world. Membership for $7.99/ month has the added benefit of new games and activities added monthly, grows with students (as they get better at the games, new more challenging games are added). I was very impressed with the free version!

How to integrate Jump Start 3-D into the classroom: Jump Start 3-D is really geared toward home use, however, I think it would make a great center in the one or two computer classroom. The site is an awesome way to familiarize students with computer skills like mouse manipulation, clicking links, using arrow keys, etc. As the students are playing in the virtual world they will also be building reading, math, and critical thinking skills…just what they need for a great 21st century literacy base.

Tips: Even if you don’t have room in your curriculum for the Jump Start 3-D virtual world in your classroom, be sure to let parents know about this fun site. It is a great alternative to other video games that students may be playing at home because of all the learning skills packed in. This site is highly interactive including video clips, highly interactive games, and sounds. You will need a high speed connection for this site. Jump Start 3-D does require an Internet plugin called Utility Web Player.dmg. The install is very simple and fast directly from the Jump Start website.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Jump Start 3-D in your classroom.

Mrs. P’s Magic Library

November 25, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3299 views

What it is: I heard about this wonderful website from Larry Ferlazzo on his blog last week and have been exploring it ever since. Mrs. P’s Magic Library is a free website for kids that celebrates reading and books. Mrs. P is the librarian at the Magic Library, she brings story time to life with video stories and read-alongs. Her library also features fun animated games and lots of crazy characters that students will love. When students enter this virtual library they will have access to Mrs. P reading them a story, fun interactive games, and videos (lots more to explore!!). The whole idea behind the library is to introduce students to great literature read to them in classic story-time style (not just listening to an audio book). This virtual library is about as close as you can get to the real thing! Your students will love Mrs. P.

How to integrate Mrs. P’s Magic Library into the classroom: Mrs. P’s Magic Library is an outstanding addition to any classroom. Use Mrs. P.com as a place to begin silent reading one day a week. Use a projector and speakers so that Mrs. P can read to your class before they begin their silent reading time. Mrs. P’s excellent storytelling abilities will have even your reluctant readers eager to read. Tell parents about Mrs. P so that students can enjoy the virtual library from school or home. Mrs. P’s Magic Library makes a great reading/ listening center and the options to read along or listen make it ideal for any students ability level.

Tips: Mrs. P’s Magic Library requires high speed Internet access because of all the video and interactive games on the site. This one may eat up some serious bandwidth in a computer lab setting!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Mrs. P’s Magic Library in your classroom.

Free Reading

November 6, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2471 views

What it is: Not all technology resources require students on a computer, some technology resources are specifically for you, the teacher, to enhance curriculum or for professional development. Free Reading is one such site. This incredible open source instructional program helps you teach early literacy. Free Reading provides a 40 week scope and sequence of phonemic awareness and phonics activities. The goals of Free Reading are to help you teach kids to read, to make quality research-based instruction for reading free, and to provide a community of educators with a common goal of reading intervention. Free Reading is really, truly free… downloads, prints, teaching materials are all completely free!

How to integrate Free Reading into the classroom: Free Reading is ideal for the reading intervention classroom, or for small guided reading groups. The program is an excellent reading program for kindergarten through third grade and for pullout programs for struggling readers. Even if you have a reading program in place, check out Free Reading. You will find excellent tools and materials that can be integrated into the current curriculum.

Tips: Free Reading has some great live sessions, be sure to check one out! (It is, of course, free!)

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Free Reading in your classroom.

Book Punch

September 5, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment1988 views

What it is: Book Punch is a new site dedicated to helping students in grades 3-9 become stronger readers. The site takes the most popular books read by schools in grades 3 through 9 and provides guided reading prompts about the reading improving overall reading comprehension. Book Punch encourages critical thinking skills and teaches students how to be in control of their own learning (this to me is the purpose of education). Students are led through the writing and thinking process as they read books with Book Punch. Interactive prompts help students to focus their thinking about a particular book. There are hundreds of built in tips and support that help students to gather ideas, organize thoughts, revise, edit, etc. in response to the literature they are reading. The site walks them in a very concise manner through the reading/thinking process. Students each get a login to the Book Punch site and can work at their own pace, making it easy for you to differentiate instruction in your classroom. As a teacher, you can assign a book to your whole class or to individual students making it easy to meet every student at their current reading level. The site offers teachers lesson plans, activities, classroom management ideas, tips and strategies, and classroom aids. Book Punch is not a free service, but they offer a free demo writing activity for every book as well as a free pilot program to use with students for 30 days (any two books of your choice.) Even if you can’t fit it into the budget for this year, Book Punch is definitely worth the visit if you teaching reading and writing for 3rd-9th grade. The free demos are wonderful and will give you a great jumping off point for your reading curriculum.

How to integrate Book Punch into the classroom: I LOVE sites that teach students how to think critically. For me, that is what education is all about. If I know how to gather information, how to follow directions, how to write, and how to think critically about what I find…I am going to do just fine in the real world! Book Punch leads students through the reading/thinking process. It meets students where they are at and the helps meet individual needs. The site gives you the opportunity to find out where gaps are occurring in student reading and comprehension so that you can work with students more effectively. Book Punch is intended to be an individual student program that would be best in a computer lab or mobile lab setting. However, depending on how your time is set up, I think that Book Punch could be used effectively in the one or two computer classroom as a center that students visit during reading time. The demo questions would be perfect for use with a projector and whole class discussion or writing. Book Punch works right into your current curriculum and literature, making it simple to implement. The ability for students to login to Book Punch at school or from home makes it an even sweeter deal!

Tips: Try out Book Punch for free and be sure to get it on the budget for next year if you can’t fit it in this year, it is very reasonably priced and well worth it!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Book Punch in your classroom.

Thinkfinity

August 18, 2008August 18, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2823 views

What it is: This is a one stop shop for the beginning of your school year but will keep you coming back all year long. Thinkfinity is “the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education, and technology initiatives.” The site is completely free to use and has outstanding content for educators, students, and parents. Find amazing lesson plans, interactive activities, and other quality online resources. Thinkfinity has over 55,000 standards-based k-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools, and reference materials that are reviewed by the nation’s leading education organizations to ensure the highest quality content. You will find great primary source material, interactive student resources, and even grade specific research lists to tailor materials and searches to meet your needs. Thinkfinity also provides free training and professional development. Some professional development options are online, you can search for Thinkfinity professional development opportunities near you.

How to integrate Thinkfinity into the classroom: Thinkfinity is a one stop shop for standards based lesson plans, interactive games and resources for students, maps, activities, book lists, and much more. Use Thinkfinity to support any of your lessons, themes, or current curriculum. Search for materials by subject (arts, social studies, literacy, mathematics, reading and language arts, science, and geography), by theme, by grade, or resource type. There is also a wonderful keyword search. Start out your year with lessons based on the Olympics in Beijing. Students can learn about the history of the games, sports, athletes, and even the history of Asia. This is a great site for students to complete research on. The sources are accurate and reliable and it is organized well for searching.

Tips: Content partners for Thinkfinity inlcude other top educational sites including Arts Edge, Econ Edlink, Edsitement, Illuminations, Literacy Network, Read Write Think, Science Net Links, Simithsonian National Museum of American History, and National Geographic Xpeditions.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Thinkfinity in your classroom.

Spin and Spell

June 12, 2008June 12, 2008Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2375 views

What it is: Remember the See N’ Say of your childhood? Spin and Spell is reminiscent of the See N’ Say game. This site is great for kindergarten through beginning second grade students. Students click on the picture that they want to spell and spin the wheel to spell the words. There are five categories of words that students can choose including what we eat, what we wear, in and around the home, how we get there, and the animal kingdom. This is a great site to encourage spelling and for spelling practice.

How to integrate Spin and Spell into the classroom: Spin and Spell makes a great spelling center in your classroom. Students can visit the center individually or play a game in pairs. If students choose to play in pairs, one student selects the word for the other player to spell. If the word is spelled correctly, that player gets one point. The five categories of words fit well into most kindergarten through second grade curriculum making Spin and Spell a great way to practice vocabulary and spelling during matching units. Spin and Spell is also a valuable site to send home with parents who are looking for ways to help their child with spelling at home.

Tips: Set Spin and Spell up as a bookmark on your classroom computer for easy access. When students are looking for something to do when they have finished work early, they can easily navigate to spelling practice.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Spin and Spell in your classroom.