Early Literacy
Between the Lions: Get Wild about Reading
Between the Lions TV series, produced by WGBH Boston, Sirius Thing, LTD., and Mississippi Public Broadcasting, aims to foster literacy skills in 4 to 7 year olds. The website reinforces the literacy mission of the series and is designed to be used by an adult and child together. Read-along stories, interactive games, printables, series clips, and songs, as well as resources and guides for parents and teachers.
http://pbskids.org/lions/index.html
The Children's Literature Web Guide (CLWG)
Gathers and categorizes the growing number of Internet resources related to books for children through young adults.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html
Children's Storybooks Online
Original stories with color illustrations for young children as well as older children and young adults. There are also riddles, mazes, coloring book pages and a page with children's links that have won Children's Storybooks Online Award for excellence.
http://www.magickeys.com/books/
Draw Me a Story, Dance Me a Poem: Integrating Expressive Arts Fosters Emergent Literacy
An article by Judy Potter that demonstrates the connection between expressive arts experiences (art, music, dance, and dramatics) and emergent literacy.
http://www.wiu.edu/users/mimacp/wiu/articles/draw2.html
Early Childhood Technology Literacy Project
A project developed by the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland to integrate technology into instruction and increase early childhood skills in reading and writing. Offers great links for resources, activities, lesson plans, software, power point presentation stories, and also access to children's authors and activities.
http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/littlekids/archive/links_kids.htm
Get Ready To Read!
A program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities that features Get Ready tools: activity cards, screening tools, literacy checklists, additional resources, and online games with rhymes, word recognition, and sounds.
http://www.getreadytoread.org/
Illinois Early Learning Project
Illinois Early Learning Project website offers Tip Sheets for educators and parents in many curriculum areas, including language arts. The tips are short and simple and easy to follow.
http://ecap.crc.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/iel/searchiel.cgi
Interactive Technology Literacy Curriculum (ITLC)
ITLC Online is a project of the Center for Best Practices in Early Childhood and provides free online workshops on the use of technology as a tool to assist young children in achieving developmental goals. The available workshops are: Literacy Foundations, Literacy Environments, Children’s’ Software, Technology Integration, Authoring Software, and Literacy Assessment.
http://www.wiu.edu/users/itlc/itlc_workshops.html
National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL)
A leader in the field of family literacy that provides an innovative approach to meeting the educational needs of both children and their parents. By providing training for educators, researching effective practices, and raising public awareness, NCFL works to expand the learning opportunities for all families nationwide.
http://www.famlit.org
PBS Parents: Reading and Language Arts
Informs educators and parents about literacy development and provides guidelines to support the development in the areas of listening, talking, reading, and writing. There is an activities section with with lesson plans and both online and offline activities.
http://www.pbs.org/parents/readinglanguage/
Reading Is Fundamental (RIF)
Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. is the nation’s largest non-profit children’s literacy organization. Filled with RIF favorites, including reading activity calendars, read aloud stories, Spanish-language resources, literacy games, newsletters, and summer reading resources, this is a great early language site. Lots of resources for teachers and parents at this site.
http://www.rif.org/
Ready*Set*Read For Caregivers
An America Reads Challenge (1997) booklet, developed by the Corporation for National Service and the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education, contains lots of early childhood language activities that can be used every day with children from birth through age five. It also includes tips, materials to be used, and a suggested book list. A Spanish language version is also available.
http://www.ed.gov/Family/RSRforCaregvr/index.html
StoryPlace Pre-School Library
An interactive website with great online activities, stories, and suggested readings based on several themes, such as pets, monkeys, and shapes. Also contains take-home and parent activities.
http://www.storyplace.org/preschool/other.asp
Storytelling and Pre-Schoolers: Getting and holding the nursery child's attention?
There is a strong connection between storytelling and literacy. Listening to storytellers provides young learners with the opportunity to develop oral language. If storytelling is new to you, read Storytelling and Pre-Schoolers: Getting and holding the nursery child's attention? A Teaching Outline by Wendy Welch. Wendy Welch is the founder of the Storytelling Section of the American Folklore Society. In this article, she provides a step-by-step approach to selecting and effectively telling stories to preschoolers. With a little practice, you’ll become a storyteller and take your children on magical journeys within your classroom.
http://www.eldrbarry.net/roos/psst.htm
Teacher QuickSource
Preschool Activity QuickSource, a section of Teacher QuickSource by Excelligence Learning Corporation, contains guidelines, step-by-step activities, materials list, and outcomes that correlate to NAEYC standards for Literacy.
http://www.teacherquicksource.com/preschool/domain.aspx?contentID=3
The Literacy Center.Net – The Early Childhood Education Network™
This colorful site offer nine basic activities in four languages (English, Spanish, German, and French). Through very simply designed activities, children learn to recognize colors, phonemes, letters, numbers, and shapes and to use computer keyboard basics. The Parents and Teachers section explains how each lesson is part of the early language experience.
http://www.literacycenter.net/
The Whole Child Web Site
Let’s Talk About It: Fostering the Development of Language Skills and Emergent Literacy contains articles, tips, activities, and recommended book lists for parents and teachers about how children develop language and literacy skills.
http://www.pbs.org/wholechild/providers/talk.htm
