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Literature, Language Arts, and Reading

Language Arts
Literature
Reading
Literacy
Authors
Booklists and Booktalks
Foreign Languages
ESL


Language Arts

HarperChildrens.com

Teachers Guides provide reading strategies, cross-curricular connections, and suggested thematic titles.

Book Adventure

With the click of a mouse, students begin a free, fun-filled, prize packed reading adventure. Includes a free Teachers Guide.

CyberGuides

Activities are based on children's and young adult literatures and California Language Arts standards.

Dositey.com

Supplemental education curricula in the Language Arts for grades K-12.

Edufind's Online English Grammar

Links to many English grammar resources.

Guide to Grammar and Writing

Everything you ever wanted to know about grammar, includes an AskGrammar feature, quizzes, Powerpoint presentations on grammar topics, sample letters, and a language arts search engine.

Kathy Shrock's Discovery School Index for Language Arts

An extensive list of resources related to the language arts.

Language Arts

Part of Sitesforteachers.com, contains links to lesson plans, literature, reference, ideas, activities, and organizations.

National Council of Teachers of English Teaching Resource Collections

Links to teaching ideas selected from NCTE publications or submitted directly by teachers.

Teachers Guide to Editorial Cartoons

An interesting site with lessons and activities using editorial cartoons with K-12 students.

Word Focus

Enhancing one's English vocabulary by focusing on the Latin and Greek elements in the English language. Activities with quizzes on word choices and links to sites that provide a variety of word experiences.

Literature

Bartleby.com

Thousands of free online classics of literature, non-fiction, and reference.

BigUniverse.com

Read online children's books in a variety of languages, write your own children's books, or check out author tips and insights. To use author tools, free registration is required.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Carol Hurst's Childrens' Literature Site

A collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom, and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, and themes.

Children's Book Council

Links to authors and illustrators web sites and to Children's Choices, a graded list of favorite books selected by children.

Database of Award-Winning Children's Literature

By using a search engine in this web site, you can choose books for readers based on a variety of criteria, including age of the reader, genre, historical period, and gender of the protagonist.

EdSitement

Lesson plans for literature and resouce links from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Illinois Children's Choice Awards

Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award

For this Illinois award, nominated books are selected by a committee; winners are then selected by the votes of students in Illinois schools grades 4-8.

Monarch Award

An Illinois Children's Choice Award for Grades K-3.

Abraham Lincoln Award

High school students in Illinois select this award.

Internet Public Library Reading Room

Links for browsing and searching for entertaining reading, along with links to sites providing full texts.

Kay Vandergrift's Children's Literature Site

This site has bibliographies for the history of children's literature and illustration, anthologies of historical children's literature, a list of children's classics, and helps for studying juvenile literature.

Lookybook

Read new children's picturebooks online and develop your own bookshelf. Requires free registration to use bookshelf feature.

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

Excellent resource, electronic Shakespeare texts, and links to other related sites.

Read Across America

This site includes information about the Read Across America Program, as well as lists of the Top 100 Books for Children-one list chosen by children, and the other by teachers (Click on Resources to get to these lists).

TumbleBookLibrary Requires Library ID when used off-campus

TumbleBookLibrary is an online collection of animated,talking picture books which teach young children the joys of reading in a format they'll love.

Reading

Children's Literature Comprehensive Database Requires Library ID when used off-campus

The CLCD presently contains more than 1.4 million catalog records in MARC format that have children's headings assigned. These records come with all of the official cataloging data, subject terms, and annotations. In addition, the database contains more than 260,000 full-text reviews of children�s books from 35 reviewing sources. In many cases, reading levels are included in the catalog record.

Intervention Central

This web site includes readability analyzers and other tools for reading intervention.

Lexile Framework for Reading

The Lexile framework provides a common, developmental scale for matching reader ability and text difficulty. Includes a free Lexile Analyzer and Lexile Calculator in the Educator's section of the website.

NoveList K-8 Requires Library ID when used off-campus

NoveList K-8, a subset of the main NoveList database, is a reader's advisory tool for young people. The interface is geared specifically toward students in grades K-8. The NoveList Learning Center shows teachers how to use NoveList in the classroom. Reading levels are often included.

Read Write Think

Jointly developed by the International Reading Association, NCTE, and MarcoPolo, this site provides educators and students with access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.

Reading A-Z

An online guided reading program using Fountas and Pinnell reading levels. By registering,a user may print 30 sample books.

Literacy

Lifelong Literacy

A website from the Library of Congress that encourages lifelong literacy.

Authors

Authors and Illustrators

Links to websites of many children's authors and illustrators from Bound to Stay Bound Books.

Author Showcase

A database of children's authors searchable by birthdate or location.

Booklists and Booktalks

All Together Now Reading Lists

This site, originated by Nancy J. Keane, contains over 1300 reading lists that are now in Wiki format so that they can be added to and edited by users.

American Library Association

This organization provides links to a variety of booklists for various age groups. These include: Book Links Magazine (Articles in Booklinks are available online to the EIU community through EBSCO and Infotrac databases.)
Children's Notable Lists
Young Adult Booklists

Booktalks - Quick and Simple

Nearly 1000 booktalks from Nancy Keane (the author of All Together Now Reading Lists, above) meant to be used by teachers and librarians to create interest in a variety of books.

Children's Book Council Reading Lists

CBC publishes a variety of reading lists for children, parents, and educators including "75 Authors and Illustrators Everyone Should Know" and bimonthly searchable thematic reading lists.

Cooperative Children's Book Center Bibliographies

Bibliographies and booklists of recommended books on a wide range of themes and topics.

Fairrosa Cyber Library of Children's Literature

Of particular interest in this site are an extensive list of thematic reading lists and a reading room that includes links to magazines and periodicals of potential interest to teachers.

BTC Booklists and Booktalks

Links to booklists developed to meet curricular needs of EIU students using the BTC.

Foreign Languages

EduHound Espanol

Links to the best K-12 Spanish Language resources on the web.

EspanOle!

An online resource for teachers and students created by a high school teacher.

Language Learning and Technology

This site offers review of books, articles, and software addressing various issues on technology and learning. Focus is on how technology can affect the teaching and learning of foreign languages.

LanguageSkills.co.uk

Language activities in French, German, Spanish, and Welsh. (Note: this site may be used without cost only outside the hours of 9 am to 4 pm)

Parlez-Vous?

A resource for French students and teachers.

Web-based Translation Service

This site allows you to translate words, phrases, and even whole web pages into another language. There are eleven different translating options.

ESL

BBC World Service: Learning English

Focuses on learning English in general, not specifically for ESL learners. Offers an opportunity for learners to practice vocabulary and hear English spoken by people with and without a foreign accent.

Colorin Colorado

"A bilingual site for educators and families of English language learners"

Dave's ESL Cafe

"The Internet's Meeting place for ESL and EFL teachers and students from around the World!"

ESL Independent Study Lab

Offers a place for ESL learners to practice their skills.

ESL tutoring

ESL students and teachers can find quizzes, online exercises, lesson plans, a job center, ESL links and more.

ESLGames.com

A site dedicated to ESL adult learners. It includes lessons, games, and songs.

Interesting Things for ESL Students

A free online textbook and study site. Includes word games, puzzles, quizzes, slang, proverbs, and more.

Pizzaz! A Resource for Scribblers and Teachers of English as a Second Language.

Offers creative writing activities to assist ESL learner in strengthening their English skills. Provides the K-12 ESL teacher with lesson plans and activities in poetry and fiction.

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab

Here English learners have the opportunity to hear and read along with spoken English. Quizzes help to check for comprehension.