Labrador's IRA Newsletter Project: Effective Literacy Website 1: 

“LiteracyHead” Online Magazine

                                                                                                             

“LiteracyHead” (http://www.literacyhead.com) is a great online, magazine resource for fine arts educators who are asked to implement literacy projects into their lessons.  The magazine offers teaching strategies that innovatively combine visual arts and literacy assignments together.  It also allows you to explore a multitude of projects or assignments that will help maintain student interests throughout the year.

To fully acquire the resources on this site, especially the lessons, you will need to subscribe to the magazine.  Subscription can be done either monthly for $12, or yearly for $99.  A yearly subscription will provide you accessibility to a plethora of new, updated lessons, as well as other magazine resources each month. However, if you just want to explore which resources are currently available, a monthly subscription is more pertinent.  On the other hand, the online magazine does have some free lessons for nonsubscribers, including a set of comic strips called “Pen and Ink” that you can use to either teach or introduce reading and writing concepts.

There are so many useful resources that educators can use on this site and are organized into three categories; lessons, resources, and tools. Under the “lessons” category, educators can choose to utilize lessons in reading, writing, vocabulary, high frequency word, letter and sound, and comprehension. There are also practice tests that you can use to evaluate student learning.  

“LiteracyHead” not only has lessons in art and literacy, but also the supplemental resources needed to execute effective teaching in the classroom.  Such resources include writing prompts, art galleries, teaching articles, inspirational art, book reviews, coaching articles, comics, and website links to meet the needs of an educator. But, the most useful part of the online magazine is its “Tools” category.  This category offers several literacy projects and graphic organizers that can be downloaded and printed for the classroom.  The tools also include bookmarkers, posters, and reading logs. 

The site truly provides a complete source of art and literacy lessons that my fine arts department needs to execute the Common Core Standards implemented in our Guam educational system. It can also be used by other educators to improve lessons in the classroom.  The interface is very user-friendly and easy to navigate. The only downside is that, to acquire such valuable resources, you would need to subscribe to it.  Nonetheless, “LiteracyHead” is a great site for fine arts educators.

4Literacyheads. 2011, May 4. "Literacyhead Lessons: Using Art to Teach Reading and Writing"
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