26 Mar 2015

Useful Web tools to support literacy - @Libfocus Special version

Guest post by Craig Kemp, an Educator from New Zealand. This post, in an earlier version, was published on his site

As a global educator I am connected with some of the finest librarians in the world. Librarians are some of the hardest working people I interact with. They work with hundreds of students and adults on a daily basis and are knowledgeable about all literature and its contents.

Librarians inspire me in the way I integrate technology in my classroom. My interactions with librarians from all over the world have given me these tools to support literacy in the classroom. These tools might be of particular use and interest to those of you working in Children's Libraries.

Into The Book is a FREE reading comprehension resource for K-4 students and teachers.

Reading Eggs is an exciting addition from the team at 3P learning (creators of Mathletics). It is a paid subscription but covers all forms of literacy with a focus on comprehension. An amazing tool for ALL classrooms, I can’t recommend it enough.

Angrybirds,com ia free online tool that allows children to learn through play. It is a cool way to inspire children to tell the story / inspire them to think what could happen next / tell stories from the point of view of the birds / pigs etc.

Wordle is a common and frequently used tool in any classroom. A great way to use this as a tool for the editing stage of writing is to copy and paste the story into Wordle to see how many times they use words. This could help them make changes / make it more exciting for their audience - be great as a focus on synonyms

Story Jumper is the perfect tool to create an e-book fro. It is FREE and you can upload your own art or use their images – unfortunately you can’t embed. It is best to screenshot them and add them to YouTube video / iMovie.   You can also use this as a resource during planning stage to see what props there are to help them write their story.

Screencast-O-Matic is a free online video screen recorder.

Chrome Awesome screenshot – great tool for capturing and recording and circling and typing over text easily.

Use YouTube for reading. Most books are online and free – e.g. the very hungry caterpillar

Tumble Books – online books for kids. Go through Hamilton libraries link so that it is free

We Tell Stories is a FREE online story creation tool

International Children’s Library is another FREE story book's online. It is awesome to use during reading session's.

Speakaboos is a site with several stories that are read to you from a variety of authors.

Rotorua East Lakes Learning Community  contains hundreds of literacy resources

Lit Works contains a variety of resources / links for literacy for a variety of levels.

If you have your own links / literacy tools please post them below with a short description.

Craig Kemp
www.mrkempnz.com
craig@mrkempnz.com
Twitter: @mrkempnz

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