Literacy  Links

http://readinglady.com/4blocks/index.html - The #1 Four blocks site – scroll down under each block for ideas.   Go back to the main page and there are lots of other ideas for teaching reading.

http://www.debfourblocks.com/lessonslinks.html - Deb Smith’s website lots of lessons for all the blocks!

http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-uppergrades4blocks- Big Blocks for the Upper grades site – lots of ideas and downloads for all the blocks

http://www.teachers.net/cgi-bin/lessons/sort.cgi?searchterm=4+Blocks - Lots of four blocks lessons for mostly 1-3

http://www.teachers.net/4blocks/goodies.html - The four blocks goodies page – all kinds of documents to download and print.

http://www.teachers.net/4blocks/column.html - Cheryl Sigmon posts a monthly article addressing issues in the Four Blocks – scroll down and check out articles in the archives!
 

Sites to support Building Blocks instruction

http://www.mrsalphabet.com/ - Here is everything you ever wanted to know about teaching the alphabet – tons of wonderful ideas!

http://www.teachers.net/cgi-bin/lessons/sort.cgi?searchterm=Building+Blocks - building blocks lessons

http://www.blocks4reading.com/buildingblocks - a nice site that fully explains the Building blocks program

http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/predict.html#kinds - Lists titles for different kinds of predictable books.   "Predictable books make use of rhyme, repetition of words, phrases, sentences and refrains, and such patterns as cumulative structure, repeated scenes, familiar cultural sequences, interlocking structure and turn-around plots. These stories invite children to make predictions or guesses about words, phrases, sentences, events and characters that could come next in the story."
-- Mary Jett Simpson, in Reading Resource Book (372.41 Je Parents Shelf)

http://www.teachers.net/mentors/buildingblocks/ - Building blocks chat board – a host of different topics submitted from building blocks teachers around the country.

http://www.literatureforliterature.ecsd.net/rhyming_books.htm - a wonderful list of rhyming texts to use for rounding up rhymes or to teach phonemic awareness.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/wordfamilies/ - a site that lists common rimes (word families) and then lists all the nursery rhymes and the rimes found in each one.

http://www.rhymer.com/ - an online rhyming dictionary – will generate thousands of rhymes – very helpful resource for rounding up rhymes or word sorts etc.

http://www.sunshine.co.nz/nz/kia/coolstore/v1/coolrhyme/rhyme.html - This is the called the "Korky's Cool Rhyme Machine".  You can insert a name and the rhyme machine will generate a poem instantly with rhyming words.  It would be great to use for the names activities with different students' names.

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Sites to Support Word Study/Spelling Instruction

http://hastings.ci.lexington.ma.us/curriculum/spelling/spelling-words.html -This site lists the 1200 most frequently spelled words used by the Sitton Spelling Program.

http://www.gardenofpraise.com/spell1.htm - most common spelling rules put to music and rhythm. – 1-1-1, silent e, plurals.

http://library.thinkquest.org/J0111282/ - Fun with words website with games.  Try the word magnets game or check out the spoonerisms and anagrams.

http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/ - The Reading Genie – a site full of lessons on how to teach phonemic awareness, spelling, fluency, etc.

http://www.literatureforliterature.ecsd.net/rhyming_books.htm - a wonderful list of rhyming texts to use for rounding up rhymes or to teach phonemic awareness.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/wordfamilies/ - a site that lists common rimes (word families) and then lists all the nursery rhymes and the rimes found in each one.

http://www.rhymer.com/ - an online rhyming dictionary – will generate thousands of rhymes – very helpful resource for rounding up rhymes or word sorts etc.

http://wordplays.com/ - a site where you can find out all the possibilities for a making words lesson.  Click on “Words in a Word” enter your word and poof!! Like magic all the possible words will appear that can be made from that word.

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm - This a wonderful site that uses common nursery rhymes to teach common rimes.

http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/anagrams/ - This site lists several categories of anagrams.  It would be a resource if you were to have a word wizard of the day (student) figure out the anagram - lots of possibilities here...

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/teachwell/ - The Wacky World of Words site.  This is a site that lists all kinds of word games with examples.  (i.e.. anagrams, rhyming buddies, mystery word)  It includes instructions for how to use in the classroom.

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Sites to Support Phonemic Awareness Instruction

http://www.auburn.edu/~murraba/ - The Reading Genie – a site full of lessons on how to teach phonemic awareness, spelling, fluency, etc.

http://www.literatureforliterature.ecsd.net/rhyming_books.htm - a wonderful list of rhyming texts to use for rounding up rhymes or to teach phonemic awareness.

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/patti/k-1/activities/phonemic.html - Lists of different activities for teaching rhyming, syllable segmentation, Beginning Sound Substitution, sound isolation and phoneme segmentation.

http://ldonline.org/ld_indepth/teaching_techniques/cld_hownow.html - a wonderful article laying out a sequence of instruction and wonderful ideas for instruction.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Dictionary.html - Take your kindergarten or first grade students to this site to explore a picture dictionary with words and pictures for each letter of the alphabet.  Strengthen students’ phonemic awareness, visual awareness and the alphabetic principle!

http://www.enfamil.com/guides/childdevelopment/language7.html#animated%20ABCs - Animated ABC’s  (Each letter is linked with an animal that moves across the page)

http://www.literacyhour.co.uk/kids/alph_char2.html - Alphabet Chart (The screen shows an alphabet chart divided in 26 boxes.  Each box contains the lowercase and uppercase version of the alphabet and a picture.  When you click on a letter, an enlarged picture appears with a sentence that explains the illustration.  (You could even save each picture and create your own alphabet chart for the students).

http://www.learningplanet.com/act/fl/aact/index.asp -Alphabet Action (Children’s voices are heard saying a letter’s name as a picture moves across the screen)

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Sites to Support Poetry Instruction

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/1133/poem_a_day.html - Here is a site where you can sign up to receive a poem a day sent directly to your e-mail address.

http://www.poetry4kids.com/ - funny poems  for older kids – grade 3 and up.  They are wonderful!!

http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems.html-  a perfect site for all types of poems that fit different units especially for K-2.

http://www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk/howto.htm - a complete site for everything you wanted to know about how to write a poem.  Incredible resource for teaching students 8-12 about how to write all types of poetry.

http://hometown.aol.com/Bvsangl/pocket.html - a pocketful of rhymes – loads of poems, some poems are written in a riddle format.  Students use the clues to guess who or what based on the clues (great for teaching inference).  Also, there is a group of poems where students finish off the poem with their own idea to fit the rhyme (cool idea).

http://www.berkeleyprep.org/lower/fourth/writing/poetry_patterns.htm - This website has several different poetry patterns that could be used in a structured language writing sequence, including the name (bio) poem and more...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/listenandwrite/home.htm -  This is called the Listen and Write site where students can listen to audio poems by famous poets, read along and then rewrite the poems using different words.  Students can create raps, similes and free verse poetry – highly motivating site!

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Sites to Support the Writing Block

http://expage.com/4writing - a wonderful resource for teaching writing.  It includes lessons for teaching writing, ideas, form, organizers, rubrics and resource links.  Check it out!!

http://www.abcteach.com/DNealian/DNealianTOC.htm - printable desktop D'Nealian print and cursive strips – lots of other handwriting tools.

http://www.abcteach.com/Extras/ExtrasTOC.htm - Special paper to use in writing centers and to motivate students with writing.  Scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Special Writing papers.

http://geocities.com/oberry1790/index.html - an annotated bibliography of picture books to teach the six traits.

http://www.barebooks.com/cgi/perlshop.cgi?ACTION=ENTER&thispage=main.html -As a creative writing experience, Bare Books ™ , Bare Books PLUS ™ , and BIG Bare Books ™ are recognized by children as professionally bound "Real" books. The blank pages stir their imagination and spark their eagerness to create their own books. The finished products are very special and will be cherished by children and their parents.

http://www.bham.wednet.edu/bio/biomaker.htm -  “The Biography Maker”  This site takes students through the steps of writing a biography.  This site acts as an idea generator.  Student can complete the work offline.

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Sites to support Guided Reading
(Book leveling, Book Titles, Comprehension ideas)

http://www.gardenofpraise.com/leaders.htm - a great site that has biographies for kids – fairly easy reading level.

http://myschoolonline.com/page/0,1871,34898-119831-38-57086,00.html -  This page lists paired titles of fiction with non-fiction texts.  Great resource of books to use in guided reading.

http://registration.beavton.k12.or.us/lbdb/ - a database to search by author, title, and publisher when leveling texts according to guided reading levels.

http://www.lexile.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?view=ed&tabindex=2&tabid=16&tabpageid=55 - The teacher’s resource page for use of the Lexile framework.  Scroll down to the Book lists to access thousands of titles aligned with lexiles

http://home.midwest.net/~cazueck/readingresponse.htm - a wonderful site explaining how to set up reader response logs.  Scroll down and click on “open-ended response sheet” and “expository text” to print out a list of possible prompts for the journals.

http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/childrens/predict.html#kinds - Lists titles for different kinds of predictable books.   "Predictable books make use of rhyme, repetition of words, phrases, sentences and refrains, and such patterns as cumulative structure, repeated scenes, familiar cultural sequences, interlocking structure and turn-around plots. These stories invite children to make predictions or guesses about words, phrases, sentences, events and characters that could come next in the story."
-- Mary Jett Simpson, in Reading Resource Book (372.41 Je Parents Shelf)

http://www.npatterson.net/reading.html - a middle school teacher’s site including reading response questions, various roles for literature circles and more!

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/teaching_techniques/strategies.html#oral - wonderful articles listing alternative strategies for working with students with learning disabilities – a great resource for a LD specialist or regular classroom teacher.

http://www.readinga-z.com/ - a site that contains leveled texts, decodable texts, little chapter books, etc.- you can sample the books and then subscribe to download all their books.

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/units/units_with_books.htm This site has several units based on several different novels grades 3-6. Wonderful resource!!