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Many special education teachers and reading teachers ask me about sites that have stories online where students can HEAR the book being read to them.  While there are several sites that do this, very few of them have the words or captions that go along with the passage.  These sites make good learning stations for students in your classroom.  Here are some of my favorites:

Storyline Online is a website sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild. There are several celebrities who offer their talents to read a best-loved children’s book on video.  Stream the video to watch the actor read the story complete with story book pictures and captions that you can turn on or off.  A few of my favorites on this site are: Stellaluna, Knots on a Counting Rope, and The Night I Followed the Dog.   This is a GREAT SITE!  This site is for elementary school students.

Loudlit.org is a site that boasts “literature for your eyes and ears”, and they’re right.  The website features novels, poetry, historical documents, children’s books, and short stories that you can read and follow along as someone reads it to you.  You can stream the audio or download it.  I especially like the poetry section since it helps students hear how poetry should be read with pauses and breaks.  Famous pieces that are featured (and here are just a FEW): The Highwayman, The Raven, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Tale of Two Cities.  This site primarily targets secondary students, but there are some selections for primary aged kids.

ByGosh.com is a good source for digital text online, although it doesn’t read the text to you.  However, many teachers have the use of text-to-speech software that allows them to copy and paste text into the program to read it to the student.  This site has items for elementary and secondary students.

At Childtopia, there are seven stories that you can hear read out loud to you.  This is definitely geared for elementary school students.

My favorite of these sites used to be Tumble Books - not featured here since they have recently turned their site into a paid site.  Previously their content had been completely free.  If your school is willing to pay for a subscription, this site would be worth your time and money.

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Read, Write, Think Cartoon Generator

Site Words with Samson

MadLibs Online

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Speaking of childhood favorites, remember Madlibs?  We used to buy them at book fairs and take them with us on road trips to keep us entertained.  Little did we know at the time, it was a fun way to practice parts of speech. 

Now Funbrain.com has Madlibs online for kids!  There are different themes to choose from: School, Once Upon a Time, Prehistoric, and Alphabet.  Once you choose your theme, the Madlibs generator appears asking you to fill in a part of speech.  For example, if it asks you for a “noun”, there are several floating nouns around for you to choose from.  Click your choice and click OK to continue.  When you are finished, a pop-up window appears with your printable story.  Fun!

RELATED POSTS:

Read, Write, Think Cartoon Generator

Site Words with Samson

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ReadWriteThink is a website sponsored by the International Reading Association to provide teachers and students quality resources online.  They have several interactive activities online including their comic creator (see above).  Students can determine the number of panels they want for their comic and then add characters, text bubbles, and props to create a funny scene.  Unfortunately, the only way to view their finished product is to print it out.  Also, the comic creator isn’t as sophisticated as other comic sites and is difficult to get rid of items once they are placed on the page.  However, this would be a wonderful site to get children interested in writing.  Once they print out their comic, they can color it!  One of the nice features is that there are lesson plan ideas and resources for teachers to use with these interactive tools.  Check out the other interactive sites by ReadWriteThink:

The list below is only a partial one.  To see the full list, see the link above.

Character Trading Cards

Flip Book Creator

Flip-a-chip (vocab practice with affixes and roots)

Mystery Cube

Story Map

Timeline

Venn Diagram

Word Family Sort

Doodle Splash

Construct-a-word

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Sight words with Samson is an interactive site to help children learn basic sight words in English. There are very few good sites online that allow children to practice sight vocabulary, but this site is worth mentioning.  Sight words with Samson also outlines 10 reasons why practicing sites words are important to a child’s development on their site.  I recommend this site for children learning to read as well as English-as-a-second-language learners.  Even though it is a paid site, the fee is nominal.  For one family, it will cost you $29.95 a year.  For one teacher, it will cost you $79.95 a year, but the teacher will also have 30 usernames associated with the  registration so that everyone in the class can have his or her own username.