Teachers

Welcome to the Teacher Resource section. Here you will find links to various resources to to support students’ literacy and language development that I have found useful in my ten years as an ELL educator working in Vietnam, Minnesota and China.

Resources for Teachers

My go-tos:

Literacy – Paid

  • WIDA – Proven tools and support to help educators and multilingual learners succeed
  • WIDA International – WIDA professional learning supports international educators by providing:
    • Introductions that build foundational knowledge and skills
    • Deep dives into advanced topics to create systems
    • Training-of-trainers to build capacity
  • Read Naturally  –  highly effective intervention programs help struggling and developing readers improve their literacy skills and become confident, independent readers
  • Readworks – It has leveled passages that target individual standards.
  • Newsela – Leveled authentic newspaper articles.
  • MobyMax – self-paced learning via a variety of subjects
  • Imagine Learning – language and literacy software program for ELLs, struggling readers, early childhood education, and SPEC ED students
  • Reading A-Z  – thousands of leveled readers, lesson plans, worksheets and assessments to teach guided reading, reading proficiency, etc.
  • Headsprout –  kids reading program that uses effective, interactive online episodes to teach K-5 students the skills they need become successful readers
  • TumbleBookLibrary is a curated database of children’s e-books, available by subscription to Elementary Schools and Public Libraries around the world.

Literacy – Free

  • Phonic Genius – Great app to teach phonic awareness
  • Storyline Online – Stories read by actors; read and view them!
  • Starfall –  Free site to teach the basics of reading. Features interactive books and phonics games
  • Epic – Book subscription service that offers thousands of high-quality books from well known publishers like HarperCollins and National Geographic
  • OpeneBooks –  a partnership between Digital Public Library of America, The New York Public Library, and First Book, and is part of the White House ConnectED Initiative
  • Unite for Literacy – a social enterprise that provides digital access to picture books, narrated in immigrant and indigenous languages.
  • Oxford Owl -offers 100 free ebooks that range from simple level-reader stories to more complex titles and layouts, such as “How to Build a Castle”. Each book is prefaced with guidance for teachers and parents, explaining the reading skills emphasized in the story. The book ends with more guidance for discussion and reading comprehension questions. 
  • Between the Lions – Great resource for videos that focus on different phonics sounds from short vowels, long, vowels, diphthongs, and digraphs 
  • Reading Bear – is a collection of free, well-made, multimedia phonics presentations. Targeted by sound. 
  • Kids Phonics – Interactive books help children practice their phonics skills. 
  • ABCYA – Reading games and Apps for Kids. 
  • Story Nory – A collection stories with audio recordings from around the word including Chinese Fables. Great way to make connections for students. 
  • BBC Phonics – Great resources for traditional rhymes when working on phonemic awareness 

Math/Science

  • Scholastic: Study jams – find over 200 Jams on topics like The Universe , listen to songs about Landforms , and test yourself on concepts like Range
  • Khan Academy – Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more
  • MobyMax – self-paced learning via a variety of subjects
  • MathAids – free math worksheets for teachers, parents, students, and home schoolers

Online Classroom

Review and Recall

  • Kahoot – a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn
  • Quizlet – Simple free learning tools for students and teachers

Other websites for Teachers

Websites to use with students

Reading Sites

Here are some sites that will help increase reading ability in a fun way.

  • Map Reading – This site links to a variety of reading skills at a variety of levels. The levels match the scores on the MAP tests.

ESL Sites

  • 123 listening.com provides different free worksheet formats and conversational audio clips in relation to different general topics (e.g. colors, animals, daily routines)
  • USA Learns – USA Learns is for beginners and intermediate E.L.L.’s, and has reading, speaking and listening activities. Teachers set up the class, and students then enroll themselves.
  • Virtual Grammar Lab – Virtual Grammar Lab is all about grammar, though it has a fair amount of engaging exercises. It’s for all ranges of students, including native English speakers. Students enroll themselves here, too, once you set up the class.
  • Zondle – Zondle has many learning games. It’s easy to set up the class and have students enroll on their own. The only negative is that you have to either create or identify the learning activities you want them to use. Just search for things like “EFL,” “vocabulary,” etc. and you’ll find man
  • English Central – English Central: In Mr. Ferlazzo’s opinion, this is the best site on the Web for E.L.L.’s. You set up the class and students enroll themselves. You can assign videos or, as I did, just let students pick any they like, then track their progress.
  • Zoo Whiz – ZooWhiz is a good — and free — Australian site with many interactive games and exercises for preschool, elementary, and middle school (and for English Language Learners who are even older). Users have to register for the site, and teachers can create virtual classrooms for their students.
  • English For All English For All is very simple to use — all you do is register and get a password for your class. Anyone with the password can then enroll in it. It’s designed for learning very practical English skills, and is free.

Misc Educational Sites

Skill builders

Typing practice

Books read online and word games

Digital storytelling – write, draw and record your voice on your own story

  • http://www.littlebirdtales.com
  • http://interactivesites.weebly.com/alphabetical-order.html
  • *Storybird – Students write and publish their own stories. The ease of the program – six year olds can do it! Beautiful illustrations available to select from Opportunities to share work: email, embed, etc… Safety features – you can even get a teacher account for each class Not only can kids publish work, they can also get feedback on their work from others through comments (way to naturally teach dialogue and digital etiquette) Students can create a summary of their work to publish Include ‘tags’ for their work (great way to incorporate a mini-lesson on main idea or adjectives) Parents can purchase a hard or soft printable version of their child’s story Kids truly become published authors!

Create Cartoons

Games

Speakaboos

Speakaboos brings classic children’s entertainment into a digital world. Beloved characters and treasured stories are given new life through celebrity performances, beautiful illustrations, and original music. At Speakaboos, children develop literacy skills while learning about technology in a safe and fun environment. There are a several free stories. We just listened to John Krasinski of The Office read Aladdin. Access to everything requires membership, which is 4.99 a month or 49.99 a year. There is a free 14 day trial available.

http://www.speakaboos.com/