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| Image from: www.readwritethink.org |
ReadWriteThink is a website (www.readwritethink.org) available for educators and parents to access free resources, lesson plans, and student activities that promote reading and language arts. The lessons provided are labeled by grade level(s), aligned with IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts, and grouped by classroom resources or professional development. Individual state standards and Common Core State Standards are also available when applicable.
Literacy experts have written and reviewed reading and language arts resources to ensure high-quality strategies, activities, and information. A section is available for online visitors to read a brief profile of the authors of ReadWriteThink. Opportunity to connect with other educators is available in the "Community" section, in which online users can read the personal experiences of educators who have used ReadWriteThink for literacy, often integrated with other skills such as technology, STEM, art, and social issues such as bullying. This section also includes community members sharing their favorite resources or recommendations.
In the "Classroom Resources" drop-down menu, a teacher or parent can find reading and language arts "lesson plans, calendar, printouts, and student interactives." When viewing the lesson plans section, a search bar is provided, or the left panel of suggested search topics such as grade level, mini-lessons, standard lessons, recurring lessons, and units is available. Featured lessons are also portrayed, for example: "Engineering the Perfect Poem by Using the Vocabulary of STEM" or "Hey Diddle Diddle! Generating Rhymes for Analogy-based Phonics Instruction".
Calendar activities are provided, promoting literacy through school or holiday events. As an example of a calendar activity, website links for the Bill of Rights are provided to students as they read and view images about the topic. Students are asked to identify students' rights issues in school and write a position paper.
ReadWriteThink provides printouts of assessment tools, graphic organizers, informational sheets, and writing starters that may be printed in the classroom. Online student interactive lessons are also provided for topics such as Inquiry & Analysis, Learning About Language, Organizing & Summarizing, Writing and Publishing Prose, and Writing Poetry. A student can click the "Launch Tool" button to be taken to an interactive program. A student may be read to, guided, respond to given prompts, or answer review questions on an editable online assignment sheet.
ReadWriteThink is a website recommended as a resource for educators and parents to develop their current literacy teaching strategies or learn new information for instruction. ReadWriteThink is an effective literacy site that provides innovative ways for students to become active learners in reading and language arts.
*Contribution by Pearl Hamada
