Reading

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Alphabet and Word Activities | Reading Response | Authors | Assessment

Alphabet and Word Activities

1. KidsClick!  A wonderful search engine built by librarians. All sites are child-approved and list reading level of the web site. This page contains alphabet sites.

2. In Kid Pix – create a template to fill in missing initial or ending sounds, or to add an ending to a list of words (-ing, -ed, -s, -es)

3. Words in a Word  Put in a word, click a button, and this amazing little site will show you all the different words you can get based on the letters in your word!

4. Students can write their names in Kid Pix, then find several stamps of things they like or that begin with the same sound as their name or that match the sound of each letter in their name.

5. What’s the Word?  FunBrain will show you a picture. Just click on the word that best describes the picture. Topics include the alphabet, animals, fruit, tools, machines, & shapes.

6. In Kid Pix, sort pictures or words in some way (by beginning sound, vowel sounds, one syllables, etc.)

7. Puzzlemaker Make your own word searches, crossword puzzles, mazes. Start out the school year by making a word search of all your students’ first names. Kids can also create their own puzzles using this week’s spelling words. Print out and have a friend work the puzzle the next day

8.  Korky’s Cool Rhyme Machine Type in your name & you’ll get a poem emphasizing the initial letter.

9. In any word processing program, change all vowels to red, or change all long vowels to red, all short vowels to blue, all silent vowels to yellow, etc.

10.Word Turtle Make your own word search or play the computer

11. Set up a database of word families. Students can add to it as they discover more words in each family.

12. Contractions Match the contractions with their correct word pairs

13. In any word processing program, add punctuation to teacher’s text, or bold all nouns, italicize verbs, underline adjectives, etc.


14. Wacky Tales Type in parts of speech to finish a story (like Mad Libs) See also Wacky Web Tales from Houghton Mifflin.

15. Create a table to record contractions or compound words.

16. In Kid Pix create a slideshow to illustrate compound words, rhyming words, word families, action words, parts of speech, synonyms, homonyms, or to create alliterations (Molly makes many muffins Monday for munching.)

17. Rebus rhymes Practice reading Mother Goose and others by using the picture clues.

18. Introduce a word a day with Dorling Kindersley’s My First Incredible Amazing Dictionary. Each morning open the dictionary and choose a random word. Students will see and hear the word. Have them define the word, and then show them the program’s definition.

19. Practice writing your spelling words in a word processing program. Once they are written, students can explore different fonts, sizes, colors, bold, italicize, click and drag to put into alphabetical order, etc.

20. Schoolnotes Create online homework pages and flashcards.

21. Create your own flashcards. Kid Pix, Hyperstudio, and PowerPoint all allow you to create a slideshow with a word on each slide. You can even set the timing for how fast/slow you want the words to appear, or set for manual progress.

22. Spell Check Something is wrong with one of these words. Good for test preparation!

23. Write a rebus story with blank spaces for students to fill in words or stamps or clipart. Or kids can dictate a story, and add stamps in place of words.

Before:

After:

24. A Rhyme a Week 30 weeks of nursery rhymes and literacy activities

25. Create collages of words that begin with a designated letter sound. Stamp the letter, then students fill the page with stamps that begin with that letter.

26. In KidPix Studio, select the Brush. Flip through the selections on the bottom of the screen till you find a picture of a die. Select, click on screen. Each time you click your mouse, the die will randomly change. Now, you can…
list 6 letters and assign a number for each. Write a word that begins/ends with that sound for each roll.
or list short or long vowels or blends or digraphs or prefixes or suffixes, assign numbers, and write a word for each roll.

27. Use a 35mm camera to take pictures of your kids. This gives students manipulatives to match pictures to words that illustrate action words (kids running, jumping, sitting, etc), names of students with their pictures, numbers of students together (1 student, 2, 3…), position words (on the monkey bars, at the top of the slide, etc), shapes, (4 kids laying on the floor in the shape of a square or circle), color words (each child holds a 12” x 18” sheet of different colored construction paper.

Reading Responses

28. Weekly Reader Writing, games, reading. Extensions of the Weekly Reader magazine – but you don’t have to subscribe to use this site.

29. Insert digital pictures of each student into Kid Pix. Students can edit their pictures to make themselves into a story character. Add written (or dictated) 4 or 5 characteristics of their character.

30. Once a month, have kids write book reviews about several favorite books. Vote on the class favorites & send the top 3 stories & reviews to the class website.

31. Create a story map using pictures or words to sequence the story in pre-drawn rectangles connected by arrows.

32. Create a Venn Diagram template in Kid Pix. Either click & drag phrases or write their own to compare 2 stories or characters.

33. In Kid Pix, create a slideshow using only text.  Record yourself reading each slide. Students can then illustrate.

34. Small groups can work together to create an overhead story. Illustrate the beginning, middle & end of the story on transparencies. Use to illustrate their Book Talk.

35. Create a book report template in Kid Pix or a word processing program. When students have finished a story, they call up the template & enter their information – name, title, author, genre, & their feelings about the story.


36. Students can put together a slideshow that lists characters, genre, main events, and & details, OR title, author, beginning, middle & end of story, OR retell the story with characters & word balloons.

37. Assign students to retell the main ideas of a story using a slide show. Limit the number of slides they may have, require pre-planning of their slides.

38. Reading response ideas:

create a 4-slide show showing the title and author, beginning, middle, and end,
or create a 5 -slide show showing the title & author, characters, setting, problem, and solution
or create a retelling of the story with a new ending, or a new setting, or new characters.
or retell with the characters and word balloons (use circle tool and lines)

39. Create reading responses: using rectangles and lines, kids can…

sequence story events by creating a flow chart,
or use shift + lines to create a grid to compare several stories
or circles to create a Venn diagram for story/character comparisons
or use lines to create sections for a newspaper format. Groups can write "articles" about the stories they are reading.
or do a character study by drawing the character and writing several characteristics.
or drawing and labeling/recording your favorite part of the story.
or creating a new cover for the book.

Explore works of different authors

40. Kids’ Authors pages A nice listing of authors and their web sites

41. More Kids’ Authors

42. Create an Author bookmark (1 of 3 columns in landscape view). Place the author’s name at the top, then list stories/books by that author. Print and laminate to use.

43. Li’l Fingers Storybooks Text & animation, but no sound.

Evaluation & Assessment

44. Videotape kids using good reading strategies. Share this with the rest of the class. Or kids can work together to create a reading strategies tape: What we do to figure out a word.

45. Audiotape kids reading at the beginning of the year, middle, and end of the year. Share with parents at conferences and send home at the end of the year.

46. Write the words to a song or poem on successive slides and have kids illustrate. A nice touch - have them record themselves singing each page. Students can sing along with the SlideShow during morning meeting, after recess, etc.


© 2002 Janine Lim and Marilyn Western.