5 Great Division One Language Arts Sites

There are many wonderful websites out there to support the Alberta language arts curriculum. Sometimes they are a site that is for one curriculum outcome. For example, Fly By is a great quick game with instant feedback for reviewing contractions.

There are, however, a few sites that have a plethora of great material for the division one language arts teacher. Here are five of my favourites: 

1. Starfall 
   This is definitely for younger division one students. It is easy for younger students to navigate. It is mostly free (there are premium features). It is also great for English Language Learners.
2. BookFlix
   This is an often forgotten about online literacy resource available through LearnAlberta (Online Reference Centre). The online books are divided into categories. Then within each categories there are different topics. Each topic has a fictional video storybook paired with a non-fiction eBook. It initially takes some time to teach students how to access the resource but once they learn you will have a harder time getting them off BookFlix.
3. SpellingCity
   SpellingCity is a mostly free resource (there are premium features). Users can create their own spelling lists for free. Students can then play games and do practice activities based on the words chosen by their teacher. However, there are also many pre-made lists to choose from as well. Read my review for more information.
4. Read Write Think
   This is a wonderful resource. Unlike the previous three websites, this has resources for a wider variety of grade levels. Their about page says it all: Here at ReadWriteThink, our mission is to provide educators, parents, and afterschool professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials.
5. RAZKids
   While this is a subscription based service, it is great for the division one classroom and worth the investment. It provides eBooks for students to read/listen to and there is a quiz that goes with each book. It allows the teacher to both assign books and reading levels as well as track students' progress. The books themselves are average in terms of reading material. You will not find any classics here.  

What are your favourite websites for language arts?

Reading Response and Forms

Reading Centres

I use reading centres in my class. One group reads with me and three to four other groups are working independently. I'm always looking for engaging reading activities that hold my students accountable and that are easy to manage. 

Comprehension Books

I started out as a grade three teacher, so I used comprehension books as one of my centres to help prepare students for the standardized reading test at the end of the year. I continued to use them in grade two because they involved reading, were easy to monitor and easy to assess. However, they are not engaging. 

Reading Response in Google Forms

As a replacement for my comprehension books, I decided to try Google Forms. That way it was still easy to monitor student progress but I could base the questions on real books, which are more engaging. Giving students choice on what to work on also adds to engagement. So I selected five books that I had mulitple copies of and put them in a "reading tub". On one day students read books from that bin for their centre work. On the next day, they log into Google Apps and select one of the books answer questions about. By using Flubaroo on the questions that are not long answer, I get a quick way to check student's comprehension. Flubaroo is a script you add to the Responses Sheet that is produced when you create a form. You can control which answers are graded and which are not.

SchoolZone Hiccup

To make it easy for my students to access, I put the links to the forms on SchoolZone (under homework). I had the setting done so their username is automatically collected. However, students need to go into their Google Drive to "log into" Google Apps. Then they can access the forms. My students handled this step very well, but it can delay them if they forget.

Remember!

Remember to select "automaticall collect respondent's EPS username" or make it a required question for students to type in their names!

Worked Great... But It Is A Great Deal of Work

I recently read a blog post that compared Educational Technology to a marathon. Using actual books in combination with Google Forms is going to be a marathon task. It'll be worth it but it'll be slow going. Creating a form for each book takes time. Again, here is where I think collaboration will help. So I've posted all the forms I've made for books on the Division One Collaboration Site For Educational Technology.

Next Steps

I am going to be teaching an integrated science (about insects and the like) and language arts unit soon. I've been working on creating a number of forms to go with animal book sets. 

Story Substitution Writing Plan and Reflection

Adding Google Presentation to a Substitution Story Lesson (Grade Two)

Currently my class is doing story writing. I've been using the strategy of using story substitution as a way to teach the elements of good story planning. For the third and final story  activity, I wanted them to take the activity to a final copy. I also wanted them to compose their first draft digitally. Typically I have done this using Google Document. 

Then I got thinking. We are making a substitution story from a book. Why not actually have the student's final copy resemble the original: a book. I did not want to make this an epic process, however. I know there are very creative ways to digital storytelling with younger students. However, my students already have the skills to use Google Presentation.

Step One: Teacher Read Aloud

I decided to try a new book for story substitution this year: Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. At the end of the book we discussed the elements of the story. 

Step Two: Story Organizer

I modeled the planning stage on the Smartboard. I created a story organizer based on the discussion we had as a class at the end of the teacher read aloud. I suggested that it would be fun to start where the author left off - with the ducks having the typewriter and wanting a diving board. So I modeled how that would look on the organizer. 

Then students were given their own organizers and told to pick a different farm animal to use as their substitution. 

Step Three: Composing Text on Presentation

I put the class substitution plan on the Smartboard and reviewed it. Then I explained we would be making a book for this story and that Google Presentation when printed would be like a book. Again I modeled the process. As my students have used Google Presentation a number of times, I did not spend much time on the technology side. 

I flipped between the plan and our writing and went back to the original book itself with the students as we wrote our substitution story.

As we did it in Presentation, it embeds nicely, so put it on our class blog and below. Currently it is just text, no images. It has not been edited or revised, this is our first draft:

Students then started composing their own stories. The only hiccup is that there is no slide that is "body only" for Google Presentation. As a result, I had students keep it simple by using the 
"new slide" button that adds a slide with a title and body. I will have students delete the title text boxes later.

Step Four: What About My ELL Student?

I have a student who is very new to English and my classroom. I wanted him to participate in this activity. For the planning stage I asked him to choose a farm animal. He selected goat and I showed him that he needed to change cow to goat on his organizer. Then I asked him what that goat wanted: meat. Again I showed him how to make the substitutions.

I am fairly certain he was not ready for story writing. So I typed up the story into Google Presentation (thankfully I am a fast typer and it is a short story). I shared it with him. His job is to go through the story and make the substitutions like he did on his plan. This gives him experience with Google Presentation and allows him to participate in the class activity.

Step Five: Images

I have not decided if I am going to have them add images to make it truly a picture book. I may use this as a story, once students are finished their composing, as an anchor activity. This is something they can work on if they finish other projects early.

Alternatively, I may have them illustrate their book once it is printed with pencil crayons.

Step Six: Commenting

My students have not done peer editing on Google Apps yet this year. I think this would be a great project to introduce this important piece of the writing process. I think I will have them practice on our class story first before commenting on a partner's work.

Step Seven: Extension

I have a number of students who are skilled writers. Not only do they finish a writing activity quickly, but they do it well. I plan to give them mini-lessons on enhancing the text artistry of their story. For example changing the font for the typed notes to Times New Roman and making some of the words bold to add emphasis.

Alberta Curriculum Objectives

2.4 use own and respond to others’ ideas to create oral, print and other media texts
2.4 create narratives that have beginnings, middles and ends; settings; and main characters that perform actions
4.1 identify features that make own or peers’ oral, print or other media texts interesting or appealing
4.1 explore and use the keyboard to compose and revise text
4.1 choose words, language patterns, illustrations or sounds to create a variety of effects in oral, print and  other media texts

A Review: SpellingCity (Free version)

A Summary of SpellingCity

The free version of SpellingCity is a game-based way to learn spelling and vocabulary. There were more free activities a few years ago that have since been moved over to the premium side. 

It has a user-created database of 50,000 words. There is a mobile app which is free for the iPad. The Android app requires a mobile pass for $1.99 or premium membership to access user made lists. 

I have used SpellingCity for a number of years in a grade two classroom. I like the fact that it does not require a great deal of time to create weekly lists. If you use the same or similar lists each year, it is easy to reuse and modify your lists. You can use the definitions and sentences in the database or you can create your own. 

It also gives you a homepage of sorts that you can use to direct your students to your class lists. 

Suggested Grade Levels

SpellingCity advertises itself as a K-12 site. I would not recommend this for regular use in a kindergarten classroom. 

Curriculum Connections

Language arts is the most obvious use for SpellingCity. However, you could also use it to introduce or review vocabulary for subject areas like science and social studies.  

Suggested Uses

Centres

I like using SpellingCity as a centre. Once a week students have the opportunity to practice their spelling words with it. At the beginning of the year I teach a few whole class lessons on how to use SpellingCity and my expectations when they use it. 

1. I instruct them to use the "teach me" tool first. This is where they click on the word and the word is said aloud, spelled aloud and then read in a sentence aloud. 
2. Then they must do the "spelling test" tool. Again the word is read aloud and in a sentence for them. Once they have spelled all of the words, it tells them how many correct they have. 
3. Finally, they get to "play a game" and they can select any of the six spelling activities (under free)

Flipped/Homework

If you are doing a "flipped" classroom, you may want to use SpellingCity as a way to provide your students with an opportunity to work on their spelling words at home. I provide a link off my class website that goes directly to my SpellingCity homepage. 

Differentiated Instruction

I like that it provides three ways to learn spelling:

1. Auditory: hear the word and hear the word spelled out
2. Visual: seeing the word
3. Kinesthetic: they have to type the word

Also, if you have student working on different spelling lists, SpellingCity is a way that they could still do the same activities but be assigned/select different lists. 

Skills Needed Prior to Use

Mouse

Students will need to know how to use the mouse/trackpad on the device they are using. 

Keyboarding

For this to be effective, students should be able to navigate a keyboard relatively effectively. It is also a good way to help them develop their keyboarding skills. 

Area of Concern

Like any free site, ads are something to be aware of with SpellingCity. In general, I find that my students are not distracted by the ads when using SpellingCity. Often I have them using it on netbooks, so the smaller screen will only permit them to see the game/activity they are using.

Conclusion

I highly recommend SpellingCity as an easy and effective way to have students practice their spelling words at school/home. Students enjoy using it.

Read & Write for Google

Read & Write for Google

Get this app from Google and try it out for 30 days free. This is a text-to-speech and word-prediction tool that supports Inclusive Education, ELL, and UDL. I heard of it for the first time today at the community of practice. It can be used with Google docs, epub or while browsing websites. You can use it to simply read aloud text to students who are struggling, reluctant readers. It will highlight the sentences being read as well as highlighting each word as it reads. It has a variety of voices to choose from as well as the languages English and French. Hopefully they will add more down the road. As the student listens or reads a document, story or website independently they can stop, highlight a word they do not understand and click on either the dictionary for a definition or the picture dictionary to see a picture which will deepen comprehension.

Another use for this app is to create a document that provides a personal dictionary of words students struggled to comprehend when reading. Students can highlight words they did not understand or could not read and use the multi-coloured arrow tool to group them into a document. It can then be shared with you the teacher to provide you with information of vocabulary to review, or introduce, to build students English vocabulary. These documents are automatically created when the coloured arrow icon is clicked and it will be saved in the students drive. They need to remember to name the document so they can refer to it again or share it with you or others. 

There is one last icon you need to know about. It is the vocabulary icon that has 3 bullets with lines. After students highlight words they are unfamiliar with, they then click on the icon and it will automatically create a document. It will provide them with a personal dictionary that includes a picture, if it is available, and a written definition or synonyms for the words. This is also saved in the students Google drive. Remind your students to rename the document so they do not have a long list of untitled docs. This can be useful in growing basic vocabulary or as a research tool. 

It will be a word prediction tool in the near future as well. Look for this update coming soon!

Please add comments to this post if you try it out and find different uses for the app. I have added a link to a document that was used in the presentation I was at. Please make a copy of it and try navigating through the different icons. You will have to add it to your Google apps connected to your user. Search for it on Google Chrome or look for it under the apps icon on a Chromebook. You can also search for it under your drive , create button, connect more apps. Once I have tried this with my students I will do a follow up post.

Read and Write for Google Treasure Hunt- Created by Lindsay Ballance (ILS)