Starfall Effective Literacy Website #7

https://www.starfall.com/h/

     Starfall is a publicly supported nonprofit organization that offers a variety of games and activities for children.  The website is geared to Pre-K-3rd grade.  Starfall is very easy to navigate, even for young learners.  The colorful pictures and the overall layout of the site is very organized and user friendly.

     A feature that I liked about the site was the Parent-Teacher Center.  In this tab you can find free resources such as customizable practice sheets for ELA, customizable word and picture cards, books and posters that you project on a screen, along with additional practice sheets.  You can also find lesson plans for ELA that align with standards.

     The games and activities that Starfall offers are perfect to keep any child engaged and having fun.  I personally use this website for a center to keep my Kinder students engaged.  They love it and always look forward to this center.  The games are age appropriate and easy enough for the children to manage on their own.  There are a variety to choose from.  The website offers some games and activities that are free to use but you need to be a member to get the full access to all the resources.  There are different memberships and prices.  Memberships include home, teacher, classroom and school.  

     This is a great resource to help build phonemic awareness, fluency and all the literacy skills.  The games are great and it will definitely build confident readers.  It is a used daily in my classroom and I recommend it for teacher's who teach the younger ones.  

Storyline Online Effective Literacy Website #6

https://www.storylineonline.net

     Storyline Online a is a program that is apart of a non-profit organization.  It relies on gifts, donations and grants to fund its website and to produce all its videos.  This free resource provides a big selection of books that are read by actors.  The selection of stories is geared for the kids at the primary level.
     Each book provides you with a description that tells you who the story is read by, the geared age level and the run time for the read aloud.  This information is really helpful when making a selection.  The website is user friendly and it is easy to navigate through.  You can easily browse the library by looking through all the books or by selecting a letter to browse all the books with titles starting with that letter.  

A feature that I loved was the activity sheets provided for each book.  This resource has everything a teacher needs to plan a lesson that aligns with the book.  The activity sheet gives a synopsis, themes that the book covers along with a detailed lesson plan that aligns with the Common Core Standards.  The lesson plans provide objectives and prompts with a step by step outline for the lesson that covers ELA and also math, social studies and more.  Storyline Online even provides you with activities such as graphic organizers. 
     I appreciate all the hard work that goes into making this website and all it has to offer.  This is resource that I will definitely be using in my Kindergarten classroom.  I give it a five-star rating and I would recommend it to everyone!

Reading Eggs Effective Literacy Website #5

Reading Eggs is an online resource that helps teach children how to read.  The website offers engaging lessons that focus on letter recognition, letter names and sounds, fluency, comprehension and more.  Each lesson builds on top of the other, giving children constant exposure to build fluency and learn how to read. Reading Eggs is colorful and will catch the attention of children.  It is easy to navigate and is user friendly.
     One feature that I liked was the option of being able to try a sample lesson.  The website offers multiple lessons at different parts of the lesson to see the differentiated activities it offers.  I personally sampled lessons with my toddler and he loved it! He enjoyed the activities and asked me to download it to his iPad.  Seeing his excitement with just a sample lesson assured me that this website is a plus!  Another amazing thing that this website offers is the different activities for different ages! Reading Eggs has activities for the ages of 3-7, but there is also a Reading Eggs Junior and a Reading Eggspress.  Reading Eggs Junior focuses on the younger ages 2-4 and Reading Eggspress focuses on the ages 7-13.  There are so many different activities in one website!

     There are three access passes to purchase and choose from.  The website offers a monthly subscription, a 12-month subscription and a family plan that allows up to 4 children to have access.  Each access gives you access to all three Reading Eggs resources.  Something that I appreciated from this website was being able to "try before you buy".  You are given the opportunity to do a free trial on all the resources before you decide on purchasing it.

https://readingeggs.com

MagicBlox Effective Literacy Website #4

https://magicblox.com

MagicBlox is an online library filled with many different kinds of books for children.  It is a free resource and the website is user friendly. You can navigate through the website by the different tabs or simply browse through the collection of books shown on the homepage of the website.  Enjoy reading books from your computer, tablet, or mobile device! You can take your books anywhere.  The stories offered are age appropriate and there are books for all ages.

MagicBlox offers different access passes.  If you opt into experiencing the website for free, you are able to enjoy the Ladybug access pass and have unlimited access to reading one free book a month.  The website also offers a Bookworm access pass which allows you to have unlimited access to all the books for a monthly fee or the Butterfly access pass that also gives you unlimited access to books for a fee of once a year - saving you 36%!

One feature that I like about this website is how every book has a description.  I think that this is really helpful in choosing what book you want to read, especially if you are using the free one book a month access.  I also like how each book has a star rating.  The online library is always expanding which makes this resource better than it already is.  The choices of books are endless! I also appreciate the stories that have the audio narrations and music.   

MagicBlox is a resource that everyone should know about.  I, myself, use it for my kids.  As an educator, I want to instill the love for reading into my students and as a parent, I want the same for my children.  MagicBlox makes reading a whole different experience for them and they love it.  

Reading Rockets Effective Literacy Website #3

https://www.readingrockets.org

Reading Rockets is a free site that offers resources for everyone.  The website's motto is "launching young readers!" and after checking out the site and what it has to offer, I feel that it is targeted for primary grade levels.  Although it does not offer a search by content or grade level, it is still easy to navigate with the different tabs it offers.

One of the features I like about the website is the "Teaching Reading" tab.  Under this tab, you can find classroom strategies, reading basics, looking at writing, and more.  As a Kindergarten teacher, I enjoyed browsing through the reading basics section.  It had information on phonological awareness, print awareness, phonics and decoding among other useful topics.  The site also breaks each topic down into a teachers section, classroom strategies, and a parents section to help explain each skill and ways to implement or help your child.  There are also videos about each skill to give you a better understanding of it and how to do it.  I absolutely love it!  

Another section that I enjoyed was the tab, "Helping Struggling Readers".  This section offered some great tips and information for both parents and teachers to look out for.  Some of the useful information included knowing why some kids struggle, learning how to target the problem of why a child is struggling and finding ways to help, information on how to get your child evaluated and how parents are the best advocates for their children.

Reading Rockets has so much to offer! From the resources, blogs, tips and information for teachers and parents, and the downloadable books - the resources are endless! I would definitely recommend this site to any teacher and parent.

ABCya Effective Literacy Website #2

www.abcya.com

ABCya is an online resource that provides fun and educational games for kids.  Choose over 400 games for grades PreK through 6th grade.  The website is easy to navigate and its colorful layout and design would make any child want to keep coming back to play a game.  ABCya was created by teachers and the games and activities are designed by educators and parents.  You can quickly choose to browse all games or select a grade level.

Not only do I love all this site has to offer but I love the "Common Core Standards" tab. Under this tab you can search for games by the Common Core Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards or by the name of the game.  If you search by standard, it is broken down by grade level.  Under each grade level tab, you are given the option to search by ELA, Math or Next Generation Science Standards.  It gets better! Each content area is broken down even more by skills such as Reading: Foundational Skills, Speaking and Listening, Geometry, Operations & Algebraic Thinking, Life Science, Physical Science and so much more! 

The "Parents and Teachers" tab has blogs with useful information that any parent and teacher will appreciate.  I myself enjoyed reading the different tips and how to's that the blogs offered.

The "Videos" tab is another great feature on the website.  Here, you can find different "how to" videos such as, "how to make a paper mâché piñata" or "how to make a pipe cleaner insect".  I found a lot of cute crafts that I would like to learn how to make in my kindergarten classroom.

ABCya is definitely a great online resource to use in any classroom or home.  The games are fun, engaging and age appropriate.  It is easy for even the young ones to navigate through.  I personally use this website in my classroom as a technology center.  My students love it and it is great for reinforcement of skills.  I love how you can access all the games for free!  The site also offers a premium sign up for family or classroom.  This access allows you to not only access all games on a desk top for free but also gives you complete access through a mobile.  Premium access also allows you to play games at full screen and is ad free.  Whether you are enjoying ABCya with a free experience or a premium one, I promise you will love what this site has to offer! 

Read. Write. Think Effective Literacy Website #1

http://readwritethink.org

ReadWriteThink is an awesome online website that offers FREE resources for K-12 educators.  The website is easy to navigate and is user friendly which allows you to find resources easily. Not only are the contents organized but the site is colorful and appealing to the eye. 

The Classroom Resources tab offers lesson plans, student interactives, mobile apps, calendar activities and printables.  The amount of resources offered on this website is endless!

An excellent feature about this website is that you can refine your lesson plan search by four categories: 

1. Grade - The website offers lesson plans from Kindergarten to 12th grade.
2. Lesson Plan Type - Choose from standard lessons, mini lessons, units or recurring lessons.
3. Learning Objective - There is a wide variety to choose from such as phonological awareness to spelling and comprehension.
4. Theme - Choose from any content area along with additional themes.

 The student interactives is my favorite feature on this website.  There is an abundant amount of interactive activities to engage your students with.  Some activities include graphic organizers, games, story books and so much more! You can easily browse all the activities or you can narrow down your search by categories.  The printables is just as AMAZING as the other sections. Under this section you can find resources such as K-W-L charts, Venn diagrams, exit slips and character maps. The Calendar Activities provides you with important events in literacy history, a variety of holiday related resources, author's birthdays and many things related to students. It definitely is not your average calendar. Want to incorporate technology in to your lesson? There is a section that shows you how to keep your students engaged with a mobile app! 

Another amazing feature is the videos tab. Here you can find "literacy in action" and watch videos that have either teachers teaching a literacy lesson and skill or see students engaged in a literacy activity.  Under the videos tab, you can also view presentations about formative reading assessments, strategies, using technology in the classroom and more.  As a teacher, I found this tab to be very beneficial especially the literacy in action videos.  I enjoyed watching the strategies in action and learning from them.

The website also has a parent and after school resource tab.  Here, parents and teachers can find additional resources such as games and tools, activities and projects, print outs, podcasts and tips and how to's.  You can find everything you need to help your child or student succeed.  The best part about it all is that every resource is free!

ReadWriteThink has so much to offer to educators and parents.  The free materials, lesson plans and helpful videos will definitely help every K-12 teacher if they are a first year teacher or if they have been teaching for years.  The website's material is quality and effective.  As a teacher, I appreciate all it has to offer!

Readwritethink.org is funded by the Verizon Foundation and is partnered with the International Literacy Association and NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English).