Literacy Resources

moar funny pictures
This task is Day 7 of 20 days to better blogging with children.  We read blogs that cover areas that interest us  and so should children.  So, what are your children interested in?

I asked this question of a group of Yr 2 and Yr6 children that I was working with as part of a writing project, they were mostly boys, and received the following replies:

• lego – this took me to a whole new world and would lend itself to photoblogging.  There are at least 10 other lego blogs!  Why am I surprised?  They would be astonished that anyone would want to read about literacy and ICT.  How about using the BrickiWiki to find a blog?  No, no.  I must stop now but how about using lego to comment on current affairs – or build a baseball stadium?
• cars – this depends on what aspect of cars the children are interested in.  Even I am interested in paint scratches that repair themselves.  What about makes of car or photoblogging?
• books – there are so many that it is almost impossible to choose.  These are just to start you off.
• speedway racing – I did struggle here
• people around the world – this is hard one to search for but I did find some that would be suitable.  I think I would need to delve a little deeper here about what interests this child.
• cats (I didn’t cheat here honest!) - apparently cats even write their own blogs.  I have heard they twitter too.  There is no shortage here, but this is my all time favourite.  Lolcats galore.

These blogs would all support the teaching of reading  very well looking at how we respond to them as readers, how they are organised and how they convey their message.  Remember, in shared reading the children don’t have to be able to read the text themselves.  You model the reading and what you are thinking.

Posts need checking for appropriateness unless they are specifically written for children.  It may be that on the whole a blog is suitable but may have one or two postings that would not be.  They should be used in shared or guided time and you need to have checked them previously. 

So, what are your class interested in?  Let us know what blogs you find in these areas.  We could create lists to help other teachers.

Home page and rest of tasks – 20 days to better blogging with children

This entry was posted on March 5, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under 20 Days to Better Blogging with Children, embedding ICT. Tagged: blogging, reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.