IRA Effective Literacy Website #1

http://www.readingrockets.org/        

           

              Reading Rockets is a national media literacy site which has been operating for a little over ten years and offers information and resources for educators, teachers, parents, administrators, librarians, and childcare providers to utilize.   These resources are valuable for teaching young kids how to read, tips on working with struggling readers, and ways in which parents can help their children become literate in reading.  The goal of Reading Rockets is to “bring the reading research to life-to spread the word about reading instruction and to present what works in a way that parents and educators can understand and use.” 

The Reading Rockets homepage focuses on four main features for its website users.  The first feature is “Teaching Reading”.  In this feature, users will be able to access effective, research-based classroom strategies to help build and strengthen literacy skills in the following areas: print awareness, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. Each strategy in the library includes instructions on how to use the strategy, downloadable templates, examples, and recommended children’s books to use with the strategy, differentiation for second language learning, students of varying reading skills, students with learning disabilities, and younger learners. In addition, these strategies are categorized by its usage in lessons, whether it be before, during, and/or after reading.

The second feature of the site is “Helping Struggling Readers”.  This feature includes great reading material about why kids struggle with reading, how to target the problem, how kids are evaluated for reading difficulty, and how parents can become an advocate for their children.  What I liked about this section is that it provides guidance for parents and stresses that reading difficulty should be detected at early stages of development, thus promoting reading early on in the home.

            The third feature is “Reading Topics”.  This section is my favorite because it had helped me out as a beginning teacher and I still rely on it till this day.  There is an abundance of reading material and resources ranging from classroom management to the integration of the common core state standards in lessons. Users also have access to video resources when browsing through this section.  The last main feature found on this literacy website is the “Children’s Books and Authors”.  This section provides a tremendous amount of author interviews, a list of the best fiction and non-fiction books, and some ways that you can celebrate monthly themes and incorporate reading simultaneously.

            In addition, this site includes reading blogs, thirty minute PBS television programs about reading and early education for educators, parents, caregivers, and anyone interested in helping children read.  It also includes free printables, e-cards, quotes, daily literature quizzes, web widgets, downloadable books, and updates on writing and video contest for primary students.  I highly recommend this site to all grade level and content area teachers as well as parents because of its wealth of information and resources.  I’ve personally used it as guidance when I was a first year teacher and found that I am still continuously using this site today as I integrate the Common Core State Standards into my lessons.

  

Information and Image Source:

http://www.readingrockets.org

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