Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.
Here’s a website that is dedicated to “providing educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction”. The site does a good job of achieving this goal.
ReadWrite Think (online resource) This is a website that every K-12 educator needs to be know about, especially those involved in teaching literacy skills. The site is organized into four main areas: Lessons; Standards; Web Resources; Student Materials. The collection of resources under each heading is extensive, and each resource is of high quality.
There are literally hundreds of lesson plans listed, and they can be sorted by title, grade level, or date of submission. Each lesson plan is carefully laid out and consists of the following components: Overview; From Theory to Practice; Student Objectives; Instructional plan, including preparation and a detailed outline for each session of the lesson; Student Assessment/Reflections. Helpfully, estimated lesson times have been included as well. Each lesson plan is referenced to the 12 IRA/NCTE standards that are laid out in the Standards section.
The Web Resources Gallery is an incredibly helpful listing of web resources. It consists of 185 links to some of the very best of what is offered on the internet in terms of language arts resources. These can be sorted by grade level or by using one of the following categories: Instructional Resources; Professional Development; Reference Library; Student Resources.
My favourite section of the website is the collection of Student Materials. This is a collection of carefully crafted flash activities that have been designed to support the lesson plans listed on Read Write Think. You need to spend time checking these out for yourself. Any descriptions from me will fall short. To give some idea of what is offered, titles include the following: Comic Creator, Diamante Poems, Doodle Splash, Literary Grafitti, Word Wizard. One of my favourites is the Read Write Think Webbing Tool. The activities have been designed so that a product can be printed out.
These screenshots show the user interface for two of the activities listed under Student Materials. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, and use your browser’s back arrow to return to this page.
Read Write Think is a joint project of the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, with support from the Verizon Foundation.
