Online Resources for Teaching Reading to Elementary Students

I'm in charge of the computer lab in a public elementary school, and the teachers are always asking for good activity ideas on the internet. Sometimes they need activities to do on the computer; other times they just need ideas that fit with a certain theme. I've gotten pretty good at finding this stuff, both for my own kids and for school, so here are some tips for where to find good activities for teaching reading.

Reading Education Resources: Alphabet Activities and Crafts

As a special education assistant, part of my job was to help kids learn their letters. We went through one letter every week or two, depending on how many activities were available for each letter, and how many days we were actually in school each week.

I used tracing pages, coloring pages, craft activities, science activities, and various read-aloud books to teach the letters. For instance, for the letter G, we read The Gingerbread Man, decorated gingerbread cookies, played a letter G matching game, decorated a large letter G with gold glitter, and made a giraffe out of a toilet paper roll.

There are many online resources for alphabet-based activities. One that I used every week was FirstSchool (firstschool.ws), which provides free, printable coloring pages, tracer pages, craft ideas, and other lesson plan ideas. Another is DLTK Teach (dltk-teach.com), which has easy, printable craft ideas for every letter of the alphabet, as well as more coloring pages and other ideas.

For alphabet activities to do online, Starfall (starfall.com) is the best. Starfall Level One activities cover the entire alphabet, offering animated sequences, songs, and games for each letter of the alphabet. In addition, there are special songs for the vowel sounds, and printable worksheets for each letter.

Reading Education Resources: Phonics

Starfall is the champ for this as well. Starfall Level Two covers basic phonics, using games, easy stories, and short movies to teach children to read. Many printable resources, such as worksheets and printable versions of the stories are available, and full-color books and journals can be purchased for very reasonable prices as well.

Free Phonics Worksheets (free-phonics-worksheets.com) is a great resource for printable worksheets. It's not a comprehensive curriculum, but the worksheets are fun and provide good practice opportunities. These worksheets are especially good for learning blends and digraphs.

Reading Education Resources: Sight Words

Kidzone (kidzone.ws) not only has lists of Dolch sight words for each grade level, it also has free, printable flash cards of these sight words. Print out two sets of the cards for your child's level, and play memory. Or, use the cards to form sentences. Check under Language Arts for this wonderful resource.

Reading Education Resources: More Confident and Fluent Readers

Starfall does offer additional materials and activities for more confident readers, including additional stories, folk tales, interactive stories, and pages about musical composers and artists.

Book Adventure (bookadventure.com) is a website maintained by Sylvan Learningto encourage kids to read. Kids register for a free account on Book Adventure, and then search for the titles of books they have read or want to read. After reading a book, kids can take a short quiz about the book, and earn points toward various prizes, such as free books, magazines, temporary tattoos and other items. This can be done individually, or teachers can register an entire class and monitor progress for all students.

Reading Education Resources: Test Preparation

No one wants teachers to simply teach to the standardized tests, but test preparation is helpful in addition to regular coursework. Brainchild (www.brainchild.com/gen/demo.asp) has sample reading tests that are similar to most of the standardized tests used in the public schools. Sample tests can be completed and scored online for instant feedback.

Reading Education Resources: Summary

If you're looking for more reading activities at home or at school, the internet is full of resources. Teachers, students, and parents can all make use of these websites.