Effective Literacy Website: Busy Teacher's Cafe

              

             A good literacy website provides individuals with resources that will enhance literacy skills.  A great literacy website not only provides individuals with effective resources, but will also provide them with strategies to create their own resources to enhance their learning.  BusyTeachersCafe.com (http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/) is a great literacy website.  I recommend the website for several reasons.  The website has different       thematic lessons, strategies, printables, and a list of resources available.  The website is easily navigable and simple.  You can connect with individuals via FaceBook or join a mailing list to get additional resources as well.

            When you click on the link entitled “Themes,” you will be connected to a list of activities to use for planning thematic units.  They are organized into subjects.  BusyTeachersCafe.com has also provided resources for holiday activities, which are also organized by the holiday.  Themes include fairy tales, dinosaurs, Thanksgiving, and President’s Day.

            BusyTeachersCafe.com provides literacy strategies, literature guides, literacy center/station ideas, classroom management tips, and author studies in the “Strategies” link.  When you click on “Literacy Strategies,” a list of reading skills will appear.  They include literacy elements, fluency, literature circles, and comprehension strategies.  I explored the fluency component.  The website defines fluency as a combination of recognizing words automatically, reading aloud effortlessly and with expression, not having to concentrate on decoding, and focusing on comprehension.  They go on to explain the three components of fluency: accuracy (automaticity), rate (how fast a person reads), and prosody (referring to stress, intonation, and pauses).  The website lists ways teachers can implement instruction of fluency effectively and they also give examples of activities.  They also list ways to assess fluency.  The last section of the page gives extra resources to enhance fluency.  The literacy strategies given are not only confined to reading.  They also list strategies for writing and vocabulary building as well.

            The have printables for reading, writing, language arts, math, classroom management forms, seasonal activities, the Spanish language, and literacy centers.  They do not have a large variety of printables to choose from.  They do, however, list additional resources.

            BusyTeachersCafe.com is a wonderful literacy website, most especially for novice teachers like myself who are just starting out in their teaching career.  What I found most intriguing, personally, was the strategies they listed.  It was very informative.

Image Source: http://elementaryeducationdegree.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/BusyTeacherCafe.jpg