Web Sites that Promote Literacy

Recommendations by LTCY 320 Students

Fall 2001

Spelling and Reading--Phonics

http://www.mrsabc.com/

This page helps with spelling, phonics,
capitalization, punctuation, and alphabet sequence.
It does cost if you decide to join, but they offer a
free trial membership.  There are over 200 sample
spelling lesson plans.

Angel Fulkerson
Ft. Knox

Kelly Bullock
LTCY 320
Content Area: Reading skills, Comprehension, Phonics
URL:
 http://abc-read.com
This site is an excellent source of ideas for teaching reading.  There is
information about reading skills and comprehension that can be helpful to not
only teachers but parents as well.  This site would be a good source for
parents to use to motivate their child to read and to get involved with their
child's education. There is also information about phonics included on this
site.

Fran Ferguson
English/ Language Arts
http://school.aol.com/teachers/tch_frame_elementary_js.html?http://edweb.sdsu.

edu/webquest/4-5matrix.html
I think this web site is great.  The students pick an author to research,
read one of thier books, and then share with the class why they should read
the book and the author.  It combines research and reading.  I think students
would enjoy doing this lesson.

 

Kim Phillips
Owensboro
content area:  phonics
I found a wonderful reading site on Clifford.  You can download stories and play tic tac toe while waiting.  It also has some fun phonics games.  I've definately bookmarked this site!
http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1

My name is Kelly Ray and I found a site that could touch on any reading emphases such as phonics, word recog., or vocab.  I think it would depend on how the teacher uses this information.  The URL is
http://atozteacherstuff.com/lessons/powerhomophones.shtml.  The students will study about homophones and create a power point presentation with pictures describing the differences between the words.  Then they can teach or show
the younger classes their project.

My name is Amanda Rich.  I believe that webquests are a great way to enhance a student's learning, and some of them even
facilitate reading.  The website I chose was http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/chavez/batquest/batquest.html.  This is a
language arts webquest that really enhances reading.  The whole qebquests starts with the children having to read a book called Stellaluna.  After they read the book, they have to investigate different information about bats, which means they will have to read through the book again to do their research.  This is a great website to help children enjoy reading.

url- http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Rhymes.html
The site that I have chosen to submit really focuses on helping the reader
with word recognition or word association, through the use of pictures and
symbols.  It is a site designed to assist beginning readers, primarily K-1,
to pick out words that they may already be familiar with.  The site features
several popular nursery rhymes and tongue twisters that children may already
know, or may provide the opportunity to introduce the children to the classic
pieces.  Examples of the selections on the site are the muffin man, yankee
doodle, little bo peep and the ever popular little bunny foo foo.  The pages
are easily printable, and I simply thought it was a neat tool for beginning
readers.  The site also provides numerous additional reading activities that
could be utilized in the classroom.  I think it's definately a keeper.
Trevor Goodman

Melissa Phelps
This site is a lesson plan site.  It has many great plans from teachers
themselves ranging from phonics to an interesting lesson that I found which is
a version of the old children's favorite "Go Fish", which uses word
recognition of vocabulary words.
URL:  http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/126.html

http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/jumanji.html
Reading
I reccommend reading thrugh this web site.  It gives book reviews, tips on how to read aloud to children, incorporating trade books into the class curriculum, information on authors, the current book up for review and many other interesting reading subjects.  The book up for review currently is "Jumanji" by Chris Van Allsburg.  I enjoy reading the material on this site, so check it out for yourself!
Nicki Lamkin

Here is a neat site.  It is called Moose Crossing and it is geared toward READING and CREATIVE WRITING.
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/moose-crossing
This site is based upon constructivist theory.  Kids write and read the work they and other students in schools around the nation create.  It is very cool.  Teachers can sign up and use parts of the site for individual, small group or whole class projects.  Students can create characters in the stories which do amazing things.
Laura Stephens

Here is the URL I chose it is
http://www.eduplace.com/projects/write. html.  This site has many different
projects for elementary and middle school.  I chose Write Now! a project by
Donna Braccini.  This project seems like it would be very fun for each child
in the classroom.  Since writing is highly stressed now I think this would
be one good way to incorporate everyone plus it would give them the
advantage to see how other people wrote and how their ideas flowed.  This
website gives a wonderful example how to include everyone by letting them
write down what they did on summer vacation.  Then they voted as a class
what to write about out of all the topics.  Once they had decided they
started writing.  After rough drafts and corrections they made a final copy.
This project should be completed in 1 week.

Heather Short

BobbiSue Bolton
Storytelling resource
http://www.storyarts.org/
Story Arts is a collection of resources on incorporating storytelling into the
K-12 classroom.  The site includes lesson plans, a library of stories,
articles, links, and a curriculum exchange for language arts teachers.

Penny Willoughby
Vocabulary-Anagrams
http://www.aitech.ac.jp/~itesls/anagrams/
This is such a cute website!  I actually found this one day when I had nothing
to do with a language arts class I was subbing for.  The kids (5th graders)
loved the exercises I chose for them.  This is a geat website!

Kim Tabeling
Vocabulary
http://www.vocabulary.com
This website looks like so much fun! This website offers free vocabulary
puzzles to help one's vocabulary. It also has many lesson plans available for
teachers who need vocabulary exercises.

 

Gretchen Roberts
Word Recognition (contains others also)
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmr/1/5/puz1_5.html
This site is sponsored by a text book company, but it directed for elementary
students. The child can go in and pick their grade level and then pick from
different activities in the site. The particular site I listed goes straight
to a word find that goes along with a trade book published by the company.
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmr/index.html

Nicole O'Bryan
www.fcps.k12.va.us/KingsParkES/reading
Reading
This website discusses summer reading activities and interactive read alouds.

Marsha Laufenberg  
The site I found teaches tricks to learning site words.
URL:
http://library.thinkquest.org/50027/SightWords/CompleteSentence/index.html
I chose this site because it is a good example of learning to read by
reading.  It uses fill in the blank and choose the correct word approaches to
learn site words.  They have several examples that can be downloaded for
practice instruction. This is the address to take you directly to this homepage! A neat interactive
site for students to use. I found a wonderful interactive website that can be used for grades first through third. It works on spelling, phonics, capitilization, punctuation, and alphabet sequence. The webpage can be found at
http://mrsabc.com/tutorial_abc.shtml

Becky Whelan (Fort Knox/Kathryn's Group)
http://www.manatee.k12fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/literalcc1.htm
This site gives you clue words when using context clues.  It provides you with
examples and sentences that contain clue words to help you find the word
meaning within the sentence.  There are also links from this page to lead you
to other reading sites that are helpful in creating fluent readers.

Subject: word recognition

I found a good vacabulary sight,with
your help.  After searching several times, I decided to look at your home page
and see what you recommended there.  I found several wonderful sights, but
finally chose the vocabulary sight.  The interactive games are great.  They
are challenging, but could still be used for the intermediate grades.  The
resources there are plentiful.  This sight would be an excellent challenge for
some of the gifted children I know.  The URL is below.  Thank you for a
wonderful semester and I look forward to your class next semester.
http://www.vocabulary.com/
Karen Hite, Owensboro: Jane Newman's class.

Angela Kinder
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/4678/index.html
This phonics website has fun, interactive, skill building games for preschool
and kindergarten students.  It was full of bright colors to enhance the
experience.

 I found a wonderful interactive website that can be used for grades first
through third. It works on spelling, phonics, capitilization, punctuation, and
alphabet sequence. The webpage can be found at
http://mrsabc.com/tutorial_abc.shtml
Colleen Boone

Heidi Haynes
Content:   Reading and Writing
http://kidbibs.com/home.htm
This site includes fun ways for teachers and parents to teach their children or students how to read and write.  It identifies strategies to help the students become better readers, writers, & learners.  It has a super links and when you click this button you get mega information and sites for kids, parents and teachers to see.  There are games and other tips and resources for
learning.  GREAT SITE!!!

 

Cheryl Carr
This site is useful because it provides teachers with examples of books and strategies that will enable them to increase their background knowledge about phoneme awareness and phonics.
 http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/Phonics_Link/phonics.html

1. Jamie Henderson
2. Content area: Spelling
3. URL: http://gardenofpraise.com/spell1.htm
4.  I thought this website had some great ideas to teach a child to spell.  There are so many rules in spelling and this teaches them by song.   This makes spelling more fun!  The website includes the 1-1-1 spelling rule, the silent e rule, the y spelling rule, and the rule for plurals.  I have always loved to spell and I always enjoyed to spell with the little rhymes or chants
if there were any.

Brandi Stone
Word Recognition
http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/teach/rec.html
This site is a great site. Talks about Context clues (semantic or meaning clues, syntactic or word order clues, and picture clues). Gives examples of analogy clues and word structure clues. This site also gives links to reading/language arts and a link to professional development for teachers, and a link to education place where it gives teachers lots of resources in
different areas to use.

Lori Davis
Study Strategies Site
http://www.iss.stthomas.edu/studyguides/

This is a really good site to use if you have a tough time trying to figure out how to study.  It has ways to prepare you to learn, ways to study, participating, reading skills, information before you take tests, and during the tests.  It also has good tips about writing as well as breaking down each subject to help you study.

 

Whitney Kavanaugh
vocabulary and comprehension
http://www.readingcomprehensionconnection.com/
The site begins at 4th grade and goes up.  This site gives you vocabulary in context sentences, reading for understanding and reading strategy to choose from to be tested over.  The skill level can also be chosen.  The vocabulary test allows you to click on what is wrong with the sentence, if anything. They provide feedback on why your answer was either right or wrong.


I would recommend going to Mrs ABC's virtual classroom.  This particular website doesn't cover just one area of reading, it covers all areas.  In the website you can access interactive programs that teach phonics, spelling, capitalization, and alphabetical order.  It provides a lesson plan to show how the site relates to a general curriculum.  An added bonus is the Math Worksheet maker link.  This takes you to a site where you set the parameters, and it creates a math worksheet for you.  It is a website where you can chose to become a member, and you can access more if you do join, but what you can
access without being a member makes the site excellent.  I would highly recomment it.
The URL is:  http://www.mrsabc.com
Rachel Hanger

Traci L. Rupard (Fort Knox)
http://www.rhlschool.com/reading.htm
Type- Reading Comprehension

This site provides worksheets for children to work on reading comprehension.  It provides links for teachers and parents to practice comprehension with the children.  The site also provides practice for other subjects as well.  It is an excellent website for teachers.  Check it out.

Title:  123 Reading Road
URL:  http://library.thinkquest.org/50027/main.html 
This site has several online activities.  The Alphabet Soup link has an audio enhanced version which does all the alphabet.  The Matching bookends link matches the Capital and lower case letters.  The Sight words link has online stories with words left out and the child can choose 1 of the three listed at the bottom to put in the blank.  There is a Phonics Phun link which has a bingo game.  There is reading material for teachers and parents.  This is a cool site with several links.  It is worth taking the time to explore.  The alphabet soup reminded me of the Reading Readiness program that Woodland Elementary is doing in the computer lab.

Terisa Johnson

Shelley Ashby
Phonics
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/4678/frame1publish.html
I found this website to have many fun activities to work on reading and phonics.  This website helps kids to develop early reading skills.  It has phonics activities such as short vowel sounds and CVC word practice.  I encourage everyone to look at this site especially if you are working with second graders.

 

Joe Smith  

Terri Jo Tuck
Owensboro Class 2
Reading site/ Study Strategies
The Active Learning Site--Study Strategies
Read/write study strategies
http://www.active-learning-site.com/read.html
This site is to help give any person a way to develop additional, effective study skills.  They give a list of four stratagies to so you can best help yourself.  The four stratagies are Visual Study, Aural Study, Read/write Study and Kinesthetic Study stratagies.  Then under each heading they list how to intake information to utilize it, how to study without tears, and how
to output and perform well on the examination.  It looked good but you never know until you try it.
No questions at this time.

Billy Bear's Alphabet Game submitted by Amanda Hetzel
http://www.billybear4kids.com/games/online/alphabet/abc.htm
This is an alphabet website that would be a great interactive tool for young
children learning the letters and words that they start.  Students play simple
games involving cute graphics where they find pictures that start with each
letter.
Amanda Hetzel

Jamie Bartley, Glasgow Campus

http://store.yahoo.com/99v/sounditoutla.html
PHONICS
I really enjoyed this site.  It is something that I know is there when I
need it and possibly my students.  I would recommend this to parents
because it has different information about different phonics products.
I also has a place where you can order important games to help teach
children to read and sound out words.

Vocabulary Reading Site
http://www.rickwalton.com/curricul/curricul.htm
In class Friday, Mrs. Petty read us several books
including Why the Banana Split and Once there was a
Bull... (Frog).  I visited the author, Rick Walton's,
web site.  It is loaded with curriculum ideas for
teachers.  It has several vocabulary lists of all
types of words, nouns, verbs, etc.  It gives you his
book title and then vocabulary lists related to the
book that corresponds to curriculum you are teaching.
Ashley Puckett, Ft. Knox- Vivian

Stephanie Butler
(Owensboro - Pam Janoski)
Reading Site: Word Recognition
http://www.mysightwordbox.com/ 
This site explains why word recognition is so important and it also tells you ways to teach it.  There is a place to order a sight word box and I think it would be a neat and fun way to teach word recognition.

Frosty Garrett
Phonics
http://www.stairway.bc.ca/alphasongs/lyrics.html
This is a cute sight and the song lyrics are wonderful.  It is a creative version of the alphabet song.  Each letter has a song and a long list of activities that can be done with each letter.  There is a CD that is available to accompany the songs, but purchasing the CD is not necessary.  Each letter's song and activities can be downloaded.

Stephanie Wall
Reading Comprehension
http://muskingum.edu/~cal/database/ReadingComp.htm 

This site contains a lot of information usful in assessing the students current level of comprehension, tips for helping with specific problems, and strategies to help students comprehend better as they read.  There are many suggestions for improving the way children read.  I like the way this site is set up, because it is very easy to follow and use.
>

Tawna Belk, Owensboro Site#1
Type of reading site: Comprehension
URL: http://www.pbskids.org/lions/
This was a great site.  It included a little bit of everything.  It had many activities in reading with the characters of the PBS television show Between the Lions.  It was full of fun activities for children and adults!

Name:  Kechia Robinson
Type of Reading Site:  Word Recognition
URL: 
http://www.manning.k12.ia.us/Elementary/teachers/Kester/reading_sites_for_kids.html

This site is great for early elementary students.  It has a Nursery Rhyme Fun item where they can click on their favorite nursey rhyme and it brings the rhyme up with pictures that are above some of the words to help the child read the entire rhyme.  It also has a place for kids to click to read giggle poetry.  It has tons of things foe kids to do and teachers could use the site to print the nursery rhymes off for the class to work on.

Marcie Heilmann
This site discusses many aspects of reading, including spelling, writing, etc.
http://www.edbydesign.com/reading.html
This site has a lot of good information for the teacher, such as how children learn to spell, stages they go through, and so forth.  It also has activities for the student.  It is colorful, and has resources to use, such as an online bookstore.

Danielle Walker

The reading site that I found, and interested me the most was 123 reading road.  I found it to fit into two different categories. One being phonics and the other being vocabulary. This site is "dedicated to understanding and providing materials to support the early stages of reading development."  There were three different activities and they were broken up into three groups hence the name 123 reading road.  They included alphabet soup, which provided activities to help children learn the structure and sequence of the letters that make up the alphabet.  Another was Sight words, which included games and activities that help readers learn to recognize words that are not used very often.  The last was Phonics phun and it included activities that
help young readers recognize the patterns in words, which will later help decode a variety of new words.  Another thing that I liked about this site was that it included a teacher/parent page which provides resources that explain some of the concepts being used, and the principles used for the development of the activities. It also includes motivational methods on helping children become successful in the reading process.
This website can be found at http://library.thinkquest.org/50027/main.html.

I found a site on word recognition that seems pretty good. However, I have to type in the URL becuase I couldn't get the computer to mail the page to me so I could link it to this page (it's my boyfriend's computer and it's only recoginizing his password...I don't know...)anyway...the site has several ideas for primary, junior, and intermediate word recognition. It
also has an index to the side that deals with topics such as creativity, vocabulary and reading comprehension--just to name a few.  Seems like a good resource.
Michelle Smith
URL=  http://www.yourmojo.com/lrk/word_recognition/word_recognition

Stephanie Ferner
Phonics
<http://members.aol.com/phonicsrm/>
This website is a good resource for teachers.  On this website there are poems, songs, literature, and activities for every letter of the alphabet.  I think this will especially be helpful for teachers who use a letter of the week to learn the alphabet.  This website also includes other websites that may be helpful in this same context area.

Montina Sharp, WKU-Glasgow
Topic: Readers' Theatre
URL: http://aaronshep.com/rt/
This site is an excellent resource for elementary teachers. It is created by author, Aaron Shepard. Shepard takes books, appropriate for grades 2-6, and creates scripts for the students. The site provides scripts that can be printed and used with the classroom to make a fun connection between readers' theatre and literature.

Geneva Crews
Alphabet
http://www.mrsalphabet.com/
I really enjoyed this site. It contains everything you need to know about how
to teach the alphabet. It also has alphabet recognition poems and songs.

Kelly Coomes 
I wanted to share The Phonics Room website with everyone.  Obviously, this is a phonics site.  You can click on any letter of the alphabet and there will be a list of books you can read to the students.  There are also some activities that go along with the stories. For something a little different, there are also songs that are related to
the letter that you have chosen.  I think this website could be helpful while teaching phonics.  Here is the URL:
http://members.aol.com/phonicsrm/

>Heather West - Bowling Green
>The URL is: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/
>The site I picked for you to visit is one that encompasses all elements of literacy that you listed when you emailed everyone.  It includes lesson plans, a bookstore, the latest news about the affects of reading and literature and a family information center.  It also has a stockpile of resources.  You can ask experts questions and get answers.  All you have to do is click on or type what you are looking for beside the search icon.  I recommend this site for everyone.  It is called the Educational Resources Information Center on Reading, English, and Communication and a project of the U.S. Department of Education and the National Library of Education.  I strongly urge you all to take a look at all of the lesson plans they offer.

Angie Lowe
comprehension
http://www.meritsoftware.com/
I liked this site because it was broken down into elementary school, middle school, high school, college, adult literacy, GED prep, special ed, and learning disibilities.  You can get to what you need quick by clicking on what level you are.

 

Tina Peterson

http://the-office.com/bedtime-story/pigfly.htm

This is a link off of a wonderful site called Bedtime-Story.com. It is a site where busy business parents can go to find bedtime stories to read to their children. This particular story is called "The Pig Who Wanted to Fly". I thought it would be appropriate considering your liking of pigs. The story tells about a little pig who dreams of someday being able to fly like a pink balloon in the sky does. It's really a cute story, one that I think lots of children would enjoy.

 

David Miles
http://members.aol.com/phonicsrm/index.html#Alphabet
Phonics
Phonics Room Website. This is a website that teachers can use as a resource guide. It has  poems, songs, literature, and activities listed for every letter of the alphabet.

 

Name:       Pam English
Content:    Vocabulary/Spelling
URL:        www.knownet.net/users/Ackley/lessons.html

If you want to find some great ideas for teaching vocabulary this is a fabulous site. This website has many ideas for teaching vocabulary including games and puzzles. You can also find writing and reading ideas, comprehension, sequencing, prompts for writing and many other good ideas. The site was created by a teacher, Angela Ackley, she says she was trying to find fun and
interesting ways to teach vocabulary and spelling because her students thought vocabulary learning boring, I believe she succeeded. She created the site for 5-6 graders but I believe the lessons ideas could be adapted for any grade level.

 

http://www.mrsalphabet.com/links.html is a wonderful reading site using phonics.  It contains all kinds of activities that could be used with any elementary grade.  The site uses the alphabet to create activities children will absolutely love.  It is very upbeat.

 

Jeanette Galloway

My name is Jaclynn Boles from the Glasgow Campus.  

 

Here is my favorite Handwriting website!  

http://www.geocities.com/creadman/handwrite/index.htm

 

I have a terrible time writing in cursive, so I found this great website that has lots of worksheets for cursive and print writing.  I used some of them while I was practicing for the handwriting assessment.  This website helped me a lot and I hope that it helps you too!

 

Name:  Sherri Hawke

Content Area:  Teaching reading through writing

URL:  http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/uaa/gregareading.html

 

This website uses, gasp--hold your heart Mrs. Petty, workbooks, but only in addition to well thought out activities.  The activities listed encourage reading skills through writing.  I liked this website and chose it because you said just yesterday in class that reading and writing should walk hand in hand.  I liked the writing ideas listed.