Clara Smith
Educator
Resources for Teaching Reading
http://skoolbo.com/
Skoolbo is an interactive app for students to learn reading and basic number skills. Skoolbo has designed lessons that will help students learn vocabulary, spelling, fluency and comprehension, each lesson is differentiated for each student and their ability. Students use the resource on their computer or it can be downloaded on a tablet. Skoolbo will first administer a pre-test to determine their ability and then the students will play games for each topic. Skoolbo will then assess them after each game and teachers and parents can track their progress.
Skoolbo teaches the same things that I am required to teach during my reading block but it is differed for each students ability. Sometimes I feel the whole group lessons are hard for some students to follow along with but this is something they can do and Skoolbo does a spiral learning algorithm that gets them to mastery. I think this would be helpful for students who are below grade level to use so they can get lessons at their reading level and build up from there.
https://www.raz-kids.com/
Raz-Kids has thousands of leveled reader books that students can click on and read or have read to them, which would be good for students who struggle to read. Teachers can also use the leveled readers as lessons with a class or a small group because Raz-Kids provides worksheets that teach some comprehension skills. There are quizzes with each book too so teachers can assess students comprehension. The app is designed to engage students and help them develop their reading and comprehension.
Raz-Kids is a great resource because it is something students can use on their own and they are able to develop their reading abilities. I like how there are lessons designed around each story and ways to use it in a whole class setting. This resource would be helpful for students to work on fluency and expression because they are hearing someone read to them and they can also asses their comprehension. Teachers or parents could then go back and look at how students are doing.
https://newsela.com/
Newsela offers tons of nonfiction articles for students to read. Teachers can search articles by topics, grade level or reading level. Each article is offered in 3 or 4 different Lexile’s so teachers can print the same article for their different leveled readers in the class. I have used just the articles but if students have access to the website there are quizzes that accompany each article and a writing piece too. Teaches can use this to track comprehension and help develop writing skills.
Newsela can get students reading and interacting with non-fiction articles by looking for text features and textual evidence. I like to use Newsela in my small groups during reading because of the different reading levels it comes in but also because my students need more work with nonfiction texts because there is a lot of it on state testing and Newsela offers a lot of opportunities for that.
Skoolbo
Raz-Kids
Newsela
Learning Ally
Mr. Nussbaum
http://mrnussbaum.com/
Mr. Nussbaum is a website that offers a lot of resources for different subjects. When you go into the Language Arts section there are about 20 links you can click on that will take you to more resources; links for reading comprehension, spelling games, grammar, letter sounds and much more. Mr. Nussbaum would be a great resource for teachers who need help supplementing their reading curriculum or want to find different tools to use.
I chose Mr. Nussbaum as a resource because of all the resources he provides. I know my students aren’t always engaged with my reading curriculum and so using the games to supplement the curriculum can make it more engaging. Mr. N has compiled all these resources into one place for teachers to use and it makes things a lot easier than having to recreate the wheel.
Learning Ally was recommended to me by an instructional coach I work with. What Learning Ally does is provide audio recordings of books that students are reading. Unlike Raz-Kids, who has recordings of leveled readers, Learning Ally has taken novels that students are reading and provided an audio version of it. For example, on their website there are recordings of the I survived series or Where the Red Fern Grows. Learning Ally will read the text aloud but it will also show the text so students can follow along and know what words are being read.
Learning Ally is helpful because students can listen to the text, which helps struggling readers still understand, visualize and comprehend without getting hung up on words they don’t know. When I do novel studies in my room it is hard for some students to read them independently but with Learning Ally I can find the book in their library and then trust that my students are able to follow along and still comprehend the story.
COLLABORATIVE RESOURCES
Litpick reviews books for yo
ung adults. they have a lot of different books on their website that you can search or preview. I would love to see my students on this in case they need help finding a book for their reading log.
TedEd has created all kind of lessons around Ted Talks or Youtube videos. Teachers can go on and search a lesson or topic they are teaching and other teachers have created lessons that feature the Ted Talks. Ted Talks are full of information and are great for lessons.
CREATIVE COMMONS
Pixabay lets you look up a picture or image that you want to use, kind of like Google Images, but they tell you what is free or public domain. They will also let you know if you need to credit someone or pay for an image before downloading.
The Noun Project focuses on providing icons for people to use and download. You can download the icons for free if allowed or you may have to pay for them.
https://elements.envato.com/lp/design/?gclid=CIDyg-GliNcCFZRefgodrHsFAg
Envato Elements allows you to download as many photos or templates as you want for a monthly fee.
Multimedia Resources
Whack-a-mole - SmartBoard Lesson
Whack a Mole is an interactive lesson that can be downloaded through SMART Exchange website. This website provides a ton of pre-made SmartBoard lessons and interactive games. I chose to use the Whack-A-Mole lesson because it could be used across many different content areas. The teacher can program each hole to lead to a different question and so when a student comes up and whacks the mole a new question appears. I see myself using this to ask comprehension questions or to study for a math test. I also thought it would be a fun way for a quick assessment. You could have students answering the questions on whiteboards or use it as an exit ticket. By using the Whack-A-Mole interactive lesson you can engage students in doing something they don’t always look forward to.
Oregon Trail Interactive PowerPoint
Another great Resource I found was a PowerPoint made for the Oregon Trail. Through this PowerPoint students are asked questions that they respond to. Once they have an answer there are points assigned to each question that they add up. I like this PowerPoint because the students are learning about the Oregon Trail while playing a game. I want to start teaching the Oregon Trail to my students and this would be a fun game to use in the middle of the unit or towards the end. I think there needs to be some pre-teaching before I just throw my students into the game. The game can be played in teams or individually and then we can see how many students would have survived the Oregon Trail or who would not have. I think it would be fun way to make the experience of the Oregon Trail more real to the students.
Scholastic News Online
Scholastic News is a magazine that I order for my students but what makes it a lot better is the online options. Each magazine is offered online and you can project it for students to see. There are options to have it read aloud, or you can highlight on it, there are videos, vocabulary words and a jeopardy game for each edition. I think if I were going to use the online piece in my classroom I would give each student a copy of the magazine and then use the option to have someone read it to them.Once they have read the article we can watch the video and have discussions about it and compare the video to the article. Once we have completed the magazine we could take the quiz to see how we did and then really test their knowledge with jeopardy. I would put students on teams and then they could pick the questions and have time to answer. This is a way to test their understanding and it also has them collaborating to come up with an answer.
Mystery Science
https://mysteryscience.com/astronomy/sun-moon-stars-planets
Mystery Science is a great tool to use for science lessons. The website has been designed to line up with NGSS standards. Each lesson has a video or two that introduces the concept and gets kids thinking and then there is an activity to go with it to help develop understanding more. Once the activity has been completed then there are extension activities or teachers can choose to move on. I would use this in my classroom to help teach science. I struggle with teaching science and always doubt my abilities, with these lessons it is done for me and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting something wrong. I know the lessons are quality lessons that my students need to learn. They have mapped it all out to so you can do units with the lessons. The extension activities also have a Language Arts piece that would be fun to incorporate as well.
Interactive Sites for Education
http://interactivesites.weebly.com/
This website takes you to many online games that you can play and are interactive. The student can pick the subject and then there are a ton of options that pop up for them to play. I like this website because students are still learning but they think they are playing a game. I would use this website to accompany a lesson or for an extension. While I work with a small group some students could be playing these games to practice and get more experience with the lesson.This website would also be great to use for reteaching as well. I have noticed my students need a different approach on a lesson sometime before they really start to understand and this would be a great engaging way to do so.
Primary Sources
I would use this song during a unit on the Oregon Tail, I am not sure if I would start out with it or incorporate it some other time. I would take the song and split up the verses between my four table groups. I would ask each group to really look at the words and what is being said. They should try to generate questions based on what they read, but what I really want is for them to take it apart. When reading the song you can tell that it is a positive thing to come West and something the people really want to do. My goal would be for the students to pick up on that and then also generate predictions about what kind of situations the people are coming from. I think it would also be fun to try and find the audio version of it so the students can hear the song. This could also start a lesson on maps and where they were referring to when they said the West.
An Oregon Trail Diary
http://www.henrystrobel.com/saintboniface/oregon-trail-diary.pdf
The diary entry would be a more engaging way to have students read what it was actually like to go on the Oregon Trail verses reading the experience out of a textbook. I might use this as a jig-saw where each student takes one day and then reports back on it. I may also use this whole class where we read it using close reading practices and come up with predictions and some ideas of what it was like to be that person on the Oregon Trail. I think the diary entry would really help students understand what it was like on the trail and how it felt to be a part of the experience.
After reading the diary entry I would bring up the two pictures. I want to use the pictures as an illustration of what it was like. I would have students do a journal entry where they respond to some questions. I would ask for any observations they notice in the picture, questions they may have, what they think happened and anything else they noticed. I think showing the pictures gets them thinking about the Oregon Trail and it helps them to either activate prior knowledge or find things they want to learn about without doing a K-W-L chart or something else they are used to.
The picture of the 9-11 would be a great opener for a Social Studies unit on 9-11. My students are to young and were not alive when 9-11 happened so their knowledge on the topic may be very limited. I would open the unit with the picture and nothing else. I would ask them to do a journal entry before we discuss what they see and how they feel. I might ask them to write down what they think happened in the picture and what they think it is. Some may be able to figure out what is going on but I think it could launch a great discussion. After the picture we will start out unit on the 9-11 and all that happened.
This statement would be something I could use on MLK day or just during a discussion on Martin Luther King Jr. I think the speech would lend itself to a lot of discussions about MLK and the work he did. I think this would also be a great way to start a discussion on making sure others are included by looking at who wrote the speech and who it was about. One thing I may ask my students to think or write about is how we could apply this to what is going on in the world today. There are a lot of things said in the speech that could be applied to all the tragedies we are seeing today. The speech also establishes the great things MLK did and I hope my students can pick up on that by doing some discussions and close readings.
Web 2.0 Resources
Online Collage Maker- Kizoa- https://www.kizoa.com/
Kizoa had a lot of things that I liked about it and very few things I did not like. The first thing I liked is that you can make a collage or you can choose to make a video. Depending on your tech level or patience having the option is pretty nice. When going the route of making a collage you can choose pre made templates that have the animations already in them so you wouldn’t have to make them yourself. The one thing I wished for was a tutorial, there is a lot going on, on this website that I would not know how to use it all.
If I were to use this in my classroom I think it would be a great tool to use for presentations or book reviews. Students could find pictures online or take their own and then put them into a collage to present on a topic. Or they could use pictures they have drawn or taken to do a book report, maybe to illustrate the main idea or the characters or the theme of the book, they could also do a summary. I thought if you combined this with the online voice recorder you could add audio and comments or leave it up to the reader to figure out from the pictures.
Online Comic Creator- Read Write Think- http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/comic-creator-30021.html?tab=4#tabs
Read Write Think is a great source for students to use! I like that they provide lesson plans for you using the website and comic strips for reading and writing tasks. RWT helps students to think through what they are doing and helps them to develop their thoughts. I like that it is easy to use and they give students a lot of support and guidance in the development of their project.
Right now in my class we are working on personal narratives and I stumbled across a lesson plan using the comic strips to help students develop the plot of personal narratives by making a comic first. I would use that lesson plan to help my student with their writing and I would use other lesson plans to help them write about their reading. I think this would be a great tool to help them understand sequence of events and to illustrate the main events in a story. There is a lot of things this tool could be used for and I want to try a few in my classroom.
Online Cool Tools- Breaking News Generator- http://www.classtools.net/breakingnews/
I like that students can design the headline for this and then it shows an actual news scene with their headline and story title underneath. What I think would make it even more awesome is if they could actually come up with a news story that is then broadcasted by the news anchors. Maybe there is a way for them to write the script and then some voice over can record the people saying it. I still think kids would like making the headlines and the tool is a great way to get them thinking.
I thought this could be used in the classroom to get students thinking about the main idea or the most important fact they learned. They could also use it to share something they used. This could be used in all subjects really because students could come up with a news story about their topic or what they are learning about. Students could use this to share the theme or main idea of a story. I think after that requiring them to make a presentation where they elaborate would be a good or they could use it as a background and come up with their own news cast.
Online Podcast Creators- ipadio- https://www.ipadio.com/default.aspx?
Ipadio has made it simple to create a phone cast straight from your phone, which a lot of people have. I like that it is easy to use. One thing I didn’t like is how they didn’t have examples on their website or much information. They tell you how they work and then you have to get their app. Which I guess would work if I really wanted to explore. I still like the concept and what they are doing because it seems pretty easy to use.
This app could be used in the classroom and for PD’s. Principals could create a podcast for their PD and then teachers could listen to it when they have time and then there could be a quick meeting for discussion. In the classroom I thought of using it for homework as a way for students to respond to reading or something. I could also use it on our iPads for students to work together on a topic, maybe they create a podcast where they debate or share information on something.
Online Word Cloud Generators- Wordle- http://www.wordle.net/
I like how wordle does the hard work for you. By typing a bunch of text into a box they will then create the wordle for you. It is pretty easy to use for the operator and has a lot of benefit. I had some trouble creating my wordle because I did not have Java on mine and that also prevented me from viewing some example too. Wordle is still a great tool though!
One way I have seen wordle use is as a before reading engagement tool. Students will see the words in bold and then you could ask them to discuss how that may connect to the topic. They would need some knowledge on the idea but then when they read through the text they are engaged looking for the words. This could be used in trainings as well or PD’s for staff members before reading an article.