Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.
Reading Specialists / Coaches
Children's Literature Connection
The Children's Literature Connection is an organization dedicated to the advancement of children's literature. Goals include encouraging networking and collaboration among writers, illustrators, teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, editors, parents, and others, and strengthening the connection between the people who create children's books and the people who use them.
Early Literacy Initiative, University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development trains reading tutors and sends them out to work with children; sharing the expertise of the college's literacy faculty with parents, teachers, and others who work with children; and coordinating other literacy activities.
ESL Writing Wizard: Handwriting Practice
This site lets you create your own handouts of words that students can practice writing. The paper is lined and the word is outlined in small dot print. Good for ELL students developing initial literacy skills.
Family Education: Printables Center
Valuable printables resource center with thousands of printable activities. Database can be searched by grade level and topic.
Florida Center for Reading Research
The Florida Center for Reading Research conducts basic research on reading, reading growth, reading assessment, and reading instruction; disseminates information about research-based practices related to literacy instruction and assessment for children in pre-school through 12th grade; and conducts applied research that will have an immediate impact on policy and practices related to literacy instruction in Florida.
Get Ready to Read!'s program vision is that all preschool children will have the skills they need to learn to read when they enter school. This site is part of NCLD's initiative to provide parents, educators, health-care professionals, and advocates with tools to help build early literacy skills, including a bilingual early literacy screening tool.
Bebop Books are leveled texts that appeal to children's interests and provide support as they develop into readers. Bebop offers many bilingual editions as well.
Media Spectrum: Reading Interest Survey
Survey about reading from The Journal for Library Media Specialists.
In 1997, Congress asked the Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, to convene a national panel to assess the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read.
Nellie Edge: Free Little Books & Poetry
Free downloadable little books. Titles include authentic material such as "Eensy Weensy Spider and Five Little Monkeys." There are also a few Spanish language books such as, "Yo Tengo un Gato."
"Bringing Scientific Evidence to Learning" is the motto of the National Institute for Literacy's Partnership for Reading. On their site, there are links to research-based information on vocabulary instruction and a variety of other reading-related topics.
Pearson Longman Publisher: Penguin Readers
Penguin readers are books categorized by the number of words used in the story, from 300 to 3,000.
Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS)
PALS is funded through Virginia Reads grants and the University of Virginia. The PALS website includes: 1) a section where teachers return their class scores to UVA and receive an immediate summary report, 2) a page where principals and district representatives can receive summaries of their schools' PALS scores, and 3) more than a hundred instructional suggestions and activities, based on PALS screening sections.
Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) : Early Literacy Activities
The Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) Program is funded through Virginia Reads grants and the University of Virginia. This site provides early literacy activities, organized by skill type.
Reading A-Z offers thousands of printable teacher materials to teach guided reading, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, reading fluency, alphabet, and vocabulary. The teaching resources include professionally developed downloadable leveled books, lesson plans, worksheets, and reading assessments.
Reading Is Fundamental: Reading Motivation Articles
Articles covering a wide range of reading motivation topics from Reading Is Fundamental.
ReadingLady.com was founded to provide personal support to teachers and offer them access to the best teaching resources on the market. Includes lesson ideas for comprehension strategy instruction, author studies, and information on the Four Blocks framework for literacy instruction.
Reading Rockets Themed Booklists
Reading Rockets highlights a wide variety of themed booklists for kids from 0-9 years old, compiled by children's literature expert Maria Salvadore. Topics range from seasons and holidays to different feelings, activities, games, and animals.
Reading Rockets: Teaching Plot Structure with Picture Books
Use picture books to teach young writers how to organize plot logically. This article includes examples of basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures.
Reading Rockets: Video Interviews with Children's Authors
Reading Rockets shares exclusive video interviews with more than sixty renowned children's book authors and illustrators such as Tomie dePaola, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, and Nikki Giovanni.
I recently found your website and it is very informative. You have found a way to teach ELLs in a more objective method and I applaud you for that. God Bless you all for your efforts to make our society aware of the need to teach English to those who come to make their dreams a reality in our country.
~ Arthur G.
