1. Cube Creator http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/
Cube Creator is an interactive website that allows students to design their own story grammar / biography cubes in a digital format. Providing both pre-made cube options (almost like fill-in-the-blank on predetermined sides) and an original create-your-own option (as see to the far right of the picture below), this website allows teachers to integrate digital technology for a reading comprehension strategy usually executed with manipulatives or analog hands-on materials, like the Retell Rope or physical Tossed Term milk carton boxes. With the two main options (and the open-ended one), Cube Creator allows itself to be ideal for both informational and fiction texts and for integration across content areas. PDF files of planning sheets that correspond to each option allow teachers to prep students before taking them down to the computer lab or opening up the laptop cart. In essence, students flip through the sides of the cube and input the necessary information - whether it be the conflict, characters, etc. of a story or the personality traits, time period, etc. of an important historical figure. When finished students can print a foldable layout of their cube that they can glue onto/assemble into a three-dimensional cube. This website offers a digital alternative to the "Summary Cube" strategy posed for "Identifying Important Information" in "Comprehension within Text."
2. Read Works http://www.readworks.org/
As an online teaching resource meant to exclusively aid teachers in their ability to teach reading comprehension to their students, Read Works offers research-based units, lessons, and authentic, leveled non-fiction and literary passages directly to educators online at no charge. Their proposed curriculum is entirely aligned with the Common Core State Standards.Although geared mostly to elementary teachers, the website's most recent feature involves materials for the middle school - grades 7 and 8 - teacher. The reading passages come with question sets and its units are tied to "close reading" and "paired texts" - two common "buzzwords" associated with 21st century education. Offering a video site tour to get teachers accustomed to the website and to raise awareness about what the website has to offer, Read Works provides complementary teaching resources and curriculum ideas to encourage teachers to teach reading comprehension and to provide them with tools to do so.
3. Shakespeare in Bits
http://www.mindconnex.com/site/index.php?option=com_content& view=category&layout=blog&id=7&Itemid=40/
http://www.mindconnex.com/site/index.php?option=com_content& view=category&layout=blog&id=7&Itemid=40/
Available as an iPad APP and as a website, "Shakespeare in Bits" is a multimedia and multimodal approach to learning and teaching Shakespeare's plays. The purchasable, comprehensive package brings Shakespeare's plays to life via animated re-enactment, full audio, and unbridged text. It offers in-line translations for antiquated (or made-up, since The Bard is infamous for such) phrases and words. There is also a full study notes, analysis, cast biography/relationships, and plot summary for every section. The plays are broken-down into digestible pieces, as indicated by the site's name. Therefore, using this digital means of teaching Shakespeare will better enable students to grasp the literal comprehension of the plays, as Shakespeare makes it a difficult reading foundation to achieve with his unconventional phrasing, vocabulary, and syntax.
4. Storyline Online http://www.storylineonline.net/
Storyline Online is a website endorsed by the SAG Foundation. It offers free video read-alouds by famous people - like Betty White - for many children's picture books. Including elementary staples like The Rainbow Fish and international stories like Guji Guji, the website gives teachers the option to use its videos as an alternative to his or her own read-aloud. When students are accustomed to how a teacher reads a story, engagement and attentiveness might start slacking. Changing up the narrator on them through this website may rejuvenate their interest in read-alouds - especially since read-alouds are a common, even daily activity in elementary classrooms. As an added bonus, in the case of Guji Guji, for example, the illustrations are not only shown to the reader but are slightly animated, adding movement to a usually still visual experience. Storyline Online especially caters to auditory learners and ELL readers' "comprehension within text," since comprehension of a story is often higher via auditory obtainment rather than textual. Such is evident and reinforced by "test read" accomodations on IEPs (Individual Education Plans) for struggling readers.
Storyline Online is a website endorsed by the SAG Foundation. It offers free video read-alouds by famous people - like Betty White - for many children's picture books. Including elementary staples like The Rainbow Fish and international stories like Guji Guji, the website gives teachers the option to use its videos as an alternative to his or her own read-aloud. When students are accustomed to how a teacher reads a story, engagement and attentiveness might start slacking. Changing up the narrator on them through this website may rejuvenate their interest in read-alouds - especially since read-alouds are a common, even daily activity in elementary classrooms. As an added bonus, in the case of Guji Guji, for example, the illustrations are not only shown to the reader but are slightly animated, adding movement to a usually still visual experience. Storyline Online especially caters to auditory learners and ELL readers' "comprehension within text," since comprehension of a story is often higher via auditory obtainment rather than textual. Such is evident and reinforced by "test read" accomodations on IEPs (Individual Education Plans) for struggling readers.
5. AdLit http://www.adlit.org/
With links to highly relevant external resources - like 60-Second Science videos from Scientific American - and research articles on recent studies - like one on the didactic benefit of field trips - AdLit is a comprehensive website that offers more than just classroom strategies and lesson aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Tabs for fluency instruction, how to use easy non-fiction to build background knowledge, and recommendations to help struggling readers connect teachers to helpful information and instructional approaches. Additionally, a resource on the site entitled, "The Strategy Library," lays out and organizes myriad strategies for pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading. Clicking on each strategy links the user to a page listing the background, benefits, a step-by-step proposal on implementation, and references for each individual strategy. This site is more than pre-made teaching materials, holding research and a database of strategies for every teacher's literacy professional development.
6. The Teacher's Big Book of Graphic Organizers
http://api.ning.com/files/bhIgfvrr9T1XvdIb3aeaIZUbIW1h2Xu99B8CDcfSxUqTA-
EKW6A5e0CsqtoiJiMtsFqj0GZCRqPvSKAzslOQsCrOVY5Z9GTx/graphicorganizers.pdf
This is a link to an online, printable PDF file of the entire textbook:
McKnight, K. S. (2010). The teacher's big book of graphic organizers: Grades 5-12. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I've had trouble saving it to my computer, so I don't know if that is an option on this particular file. However, regardless, this is an incredible resource. It provides clear copies of each graphic organizer, so blurry, dark, or slanted photocopies are no longer an issue if you ever wanted to replicate an organizer. Although, I do not endorse using premade worksheets in the classroom, this link allows you to look up ideas quickly - and for free - so that you can put your own personal spin on them - with color, with additions, with omissions, with your students in mind!
http://api.ning.com/files/bhIgfvrr9T1XvdIb3aeaIZUbIW1h2Xu99B8CDcfSxUqTA-
EKW6A5e0CsqtoiJiMtsFqj0GZCRqPvSKAzslOQsCrOVY5Z9GTx/graphicorganizers.pdf
This is a link to an online, printable PDF file of the entire textbook:
McKnight, K. S. (2010). The teacher's big book of graphic organizers: Grades 5-12. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
I've had trouble saving it to my computer, so I don't know if that is an option on this particular file. However, regardless, this is an incredible resource. It provides clear copies of each graphic organizer, so blurry, dark, or slanted photocopies are no longer an issue if you ever wanted to replicate an organizer. Although, I do not endorse using premade worksheets in the classroom, this link allows you to look up ideas quickly - and for free - so that you can put your own personal spin on them - with color, with additions, with omissions, with your students in mind!
7. Teaching Channel https://www.teachingchannel.org/?national=1
The Teaching Channel is a video showcase of best practice teaching. It's mission is to empower teachers across America to connect with one another in order to exchange ideas, strategies, and professional resources. The Teaching Channel aims to inspire and engage teachers through video tutorials, Common Core State Standards discussion forums, teacher blogs, and informative newsletters. Through interactive discussion forums and videos of K-12 teachers in action, the website inspires and supports the professional development of teachers across the United States. For more information on strategies for teaching comprehension within text, search for teaching comprehension videos, subscribe to one of the many teaching blogs, or join a community of thousands of teachers in a Q & A forum on the topic of comprehension.
8. Weekly Reader http://www.weeklyreader.com
Weekly Reader is a beneficial source for teachers. It has a number of great resources for teachers to use, such as: teaching centers for grade Pre K-12, teaching tips and magazines for students to read with activities to reinforce literary elements. Weekly Reader magazines can be extremely helpful for teachers because they have a variety of issues for all subjects and topics of current and engaging events. In today's society, technology is becoming such a large impact within classrooms. Therefore, teachers can subscribe for hard copies of magazines or have the students participate digitally!