Have you tried this books on line website yet? Well it's a great tool to enable you to get additional books for you readers workshop. Not only does it have a variety of levels of guided reading books, but you can download plays from the Readers Theater section, select passages from the Fluency section to help improve reading rate and fluency or use the variey of activities from the Vocabulary section to expand your word study activities. (These are just some of the sectios in this site!) I've used the plays for some of my struggling readers and they love it! The guided reading section offers a wide variety of topics and genre with many social studies and science titles. A word of caution here... the Readinga-z"letter" level and the Fountas & Pinnell "letter"level are different. However, each book has a correlation chart on the back cover listing the Readinga-z level, Fountas & Pinnell, Reading Recovery and DRA level. Guided reading books also have some worksheets for each book which cover a wide variety of skills. Some of these worksheet are O.K. and some I'd pass on. You need to look them over. Many worksheets are not directly tied into the book so they can be used in isolation, perhaps for additional practice on a skill already introduced.
Readinga-z.com is definitley worth looking into. Some teachers are presently involved in a pilot program and are able to obtain full access. Try Readinga-z.com and if you'd like to see more, ask your Reading Specialist and she'll either give you the info you need or give you the name of a person who can answer your questions (I hope!).
The Elementary Technology Study Groups are using this blog as a reflection and communication tool as we work together to learn more about technology integrated instruction in our school.
Subscribe
Respect Slide Show
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Respect Week. Make your own badge here.
Blogs & Podcasts to Check Out
eSchool News Top Stories
Categories
- Conferences (1)
- Tech Standards (1)
- Technology in the News (1)
- Web 2.0 (6)
- Wikis (2)
Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
7 comments:
I used A-Z a bit with Margaret last year. I didn't take an in depth look. I pulled off some reader's theater plays, leveled books, and a few activities. I really like how simple it was to find leveled books in different genres. Margaret and I used several during our fable unit. Our second graders really loved the plays and we used them to increase fluency. The children were very enthusiastic to “practice” their plays because they were so motivated. They knew that they were going to perform the plays in front of their classmates so they practiced their parts any chance they could. Maybe I should go back in and take a deeper look of what’s there!
I'm glad you are finding it useful, Jess. I wasn't sure if this would be a resource more appropriate for younger grades. I'm glad to see that it is also useful, at least to some extent, for older students as well.
I personally do not have access to this site but I am working with a few teachers that have been sharing what they have found. I am working on reading and analyzing poetry with my students. Jane found several poetry books and that are really cute and I know the students will have some background knowledge about the topics. A few of the poems are in their own booklet and appear to be a lower level. There is also and anthology that has many different kids of poems on many different topics. The only thing that is not typical of this site it that they are not leveled.
I thought it was important for me to check out this site after the conversation we had at a meeting - I felt out of the loop!! For me personally, this site would be so useful. Since we created the bookrooms, the supply of books that used to be at my fingertips is now around the corner in a different hall. I could actually get some guided reading planning done at home.
I am also not really a worksheet person with my little ones but some of them are very appropriate and would be a good thing to send home with the book so parents could follow up. I hope we continue to have this site and I would love to have access to it at school.
I read the blog on Reading a-z.com. As an educator, I have used this resource and absolutely love it. This site is perfect for educators interested in literacy instruction, differentiation and content area literacy. I really like the leveling charts and the printable books. What a great resource. I think this blog served as a great resource.
I believe that the readinga-z website is a great resource. Currently, I work in a self-contained special education classroom. There are not many guided reading resources at the school for students who are reading below grade level. The site has been a great resource for me. I also think that the site provides great nonfiction selections in the areas of social studies and science. I use these resources with my entire class to help integrate reading in the content areas.
This is a great site especially for the primary grade levels. The books are great to send home. This summer I sent home a bunch with my kindergarten students to help them over the summer. It takes the guessing out for the parents since they are not sure what books their child can and should be reading.
Post a Comment