Literacy Resources

Many thanks to Redbridge Primary ICT for sharing the resource WordSift.  WordSift takes a text or section of a text and displays a word cloud that shows the frequency of the words, whether they appear in 570 most frequently used academic words and displays them alphabetically. This wordsift is taken from a text about Roman [...]

If you are a fan of visual thinking tools , which I am, and of tools for collaboration then you will probably enjoy myWebspiration. Click on the map to zoom in and explore in more detail. There is a clear explanation about why visual thinking is such a powerful tool and a getting started guide.  [...]

Kidderlit is a wonderful idea.  A website that sends you the first line of a children’s book every day.  What a collection!  You can choose how you are sent the line: twitter, Google Reader, widget on your igoogle page or just visiting the site. What are your favourite opening lines? You could generate a class [...]

I am having a challenging time trying to work my way through Myst III Exile and it reminds me about how struggling readers must feel.  In the real world I am famous for my lack of sense of direction, which coupled with my problems with left and right are really leaving me struggling in the [...]

This is a fairly dark story about what happens when we destroy nature.  As the buildings and ‘others’ take over the text becomes harder and harder to read – just as it becomes harder to hear in the story.  This is an interesting book telling a story that is occurring more and more frequently in [...]

OK.  You’re thinking about blogging with children and wonder what they might write about.  Well, bloggers write about something that they are interested in and want to discuss with the wider world but I have already covered this.  So what sorts of projects could you do that mean that you could blog for a limited [...]

We quite often play a game on training days suggested by Pie Corbett in his book JumpStart! StoryMaking called Disasters.  Pie gives an example of 5 disasters for Superman such as his Dad tells him not to start fights or  his Gran gives him kryptonite pants for christmas. In order to be able to play [...]

Xtranormal haspopped up in bookmarks and blogs for a couple of weeks and I have finally got round to having a look at it and I love it! Xtranormal is movie making with cartoon characters but what makes this site stand out is the way in which you create the movie.  First you type in a script [...]

I was recently asked by @JeanetteMcLeod  what I thought about ebooks in the classroom and why  they weren’t being used.  A good question. I think that there are several situations where e-books could be used in literacy: shared reading, guided reading and  independent reading; and across the curriculum for research. We call books that are [...]