PreK - 3 Language Arts

Story for Young Readers

For Virginia Teachers --

Virginia Standards of Learning: Instruction, Training,and Assessment Resources

TECH TIP: Many websites for children are very graphic intense. To save instructional time, you can download the website into your cache prior to using the site with the students. Many sites also require plugins such as Shockwave, RealOnePlayer, or Quicktime, as well as needing JavaScript and ActiveX. Previewing a site before using it with students is always a good idea.

Links to Other Sites

Alfy.com Storyville: This is a VERY graphic intense site for K-2 children. The stories are presented using both audio and print with some interactive features. It is part of the Alfy Web Portal for Kids.
Alphabet Letter Puzzle: This is a Java game. The player matches the capital letters with the lower case letters to create a picture. You may find some other games that appeal to you at the main site, Kinder Planet.
American Folklore: This site is very low-tech as the stories are text-only, but well worth a visit. There are stories from all the states. Younger students will need reading help.
Arthur: the World's Most Famous Aardvark: This is the web site for the PBS show based on Marc Brown's books.
Children's Books Online: the Rosetta Project: You can read online or download books from this online collection of illustrated, antique children's books. You will need to be able to unzip the file. Some titles are available in multiple languages.
Children's Storybooks Online: Original stories are available at this site. The stories for older children could be read by most third graders. The illustrations take time to download, so you may want to download the stories to your cache. No special plugins are needed.
Clifford the Big Red Dog: To use this web site for the PBS show based on the Clifford books by Norman Bridwell, the browser needs to be set to accept Java applets.
Find It Virginia: This is an electronic resources library available to Virginia citizens. All you need is the bar code on your public library card to access this database. You can then search several databases for periodicals and information on subjects including health, businesses, history, arts and entertainment and general research. It also has databases for students. "Find It Virginia" is administered by the Library of Virginia and is funded by the General Assembly.
FunBrain.com Words: This site has educational games for children. The games have different levels, which make them appropriate for more than one grade level. This link will take you to the word games.
GameGoo: Excellent games for practicing beginning language and reading skills can be found at this graphic intense site. You will probably want to download to your cache before using the games with students. Three levels of games span the K - 3 range. Flash is required, but two different connection speeds are available.
Hangman Game: Choose a word category for your game and start to play. British spellings are used, so watch out for things like "colour" for "color". You do have to fill in a name to start. I just used "me".
Illustrated Vocabulary: Children can match words with pictures at this site from Belgium. The activities are available in English, French, Danish, and Dutch with plans to add more languages. I found some of the pictures a little hard to identify, but this is a site worth checking out. It would be useful for beginning readers working in their own language as well as students learning a foreign language.
Jan Brett: The home page of children's author, Jan Brett, has lots of resources for the primary classroom.
Kidspace @ The Internet Public Library: The University of Michigan created the Internet Public Library. Kidspace is the section especially for children.
Kids' Place: Textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin provides this K - 8 website. Even if you do not use their textbooks, you will find some usable activities here. The activities are grouped by grade level.
Learning Planet Games Pre-School - Kindergarten: The language games at this site deal with letter recognition. There are also color and shape matching games. The Shockwave player is required.
Literacy Center - The Early Childhood Education Network: Readiness games are available in English, French, German, and Spanish. Flash Player is needed for this site.
Little Animals Activity Centre: Language and math games can be found at this site from the BBC.
Little Explorers: This is a picture dictionary. Many of the dictionary entries link to other activities. An English-to-Spanish version is available, as well as German, French, Japanese, and Portuguese.
Miscositas.com: This site has a collection of virtual picturebooks in English, French and Spanish. There are also games, realia, and curricular suggestions for teaching and learning these languages. Younger students may need reading help.
Monthly Activity Calendar: This is another of the wonderful resources found at Enchanted Learning.
Mother Goose Rebus Rhymes: You will find a wealth of illustrated nursery rhymes at this site.
MysteryNet's Kids Mysteries: The stories at this site are written on approximately a grade 3 to 5 reading level. The Solve-it stories are very good comprehension exercises. A new one is presented each month.
NIEHS Kids Pages: This site from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences defies classification. There are some stories and jokes at this site as well as other activities and games. Java must be enabled to play many of the games.
Online Rhyming Dictionary: Type in your word, click on the Rhyme button, and up comes a list of rhyming words.
Page by Page: At this site by the National Library of Canada, you will learn how a children's book is created from the idea to the book in the reader's hands. This site would be too difficult for younger children to read alone, but it would make a good class lesson. The graphics are very slow to download, so you would want to download it into your cache ahead of time.
Poetry for Kids by Kenn Nesbitt: Children's poet Kenn Nesbitt has many of his poems posted at his website.
PrimaryGames.com - Language Arts: These Java games provide practice in some basic learning skills.
Sesame Street Site Map: This page is the site map of all the games and activities located at Sesame Workshop. You can see which games and activities match the readiness skills, as well as find the activities of your favorite Sesame Street characters.
Snapdragon: Snapdragon is a BBC radio series character. At his website you can match sounds, count, tell time, and learn your colors. And you might pick up a bit of Welsh, too. Flash Player is needed. This is a cute little site for young children. They will need help with game directions the first time, but should be okay on their own after that.
StoryPlace: The Children's Digital Library: This is the site of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. It has an English and a Spanish version. The first download is very slow, especially on a dialup connection. The stories have both print and audio. There is a special section for pre-schoolers.
Tomie.com: The official website of children's author, Tomie dePaola
Using Cheers and Chants in the Classroom: Chants and raps are an excellent teaching tool for reading. They are a great variation of more traditional poetry. At this site you can find chants and raps that you can work into many subject areas. For more information about using poetry for teaching reading, see my article, Using Poetry to Teach Reading.

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