Thursday, August 02, 2007

Using Computers To Teach Reading

I wanted to share a few of the favorite sites I use to help my English Language Learner students develop their reading skills.

They are basically divided into two categories -- sites that explicitly teach reading strategies and test comprehension, and sites that offer fiction or non-fiction stories that have text with audio and visual support.

For the former, my favorites include:

* Reading Ring, an activity on the excellent Professor Garfield site. In this game, players have to correctly unscramble a comic strip and then answer questions about it.

* Into The Book is a work-in-progress that will eventually have interactive exercises helping students learn multiple reading strategies. Right now only the one of "visualizing" is complete. It's extraordinarily well-done.

* There are two sites that have multiple activities to help teach reading strategies. I have links to many of these specific activities, and the ones I mentioned earlier, under the English For Beginners -- Reading section of my website. However, it's worth checking-out the two sites that host them all, too. They are Study Zone Test Prep Center of New York and the United Kingdom's Embedded Learning Portal.

I have links to thousands of online stories that offer text with audio and visual support on the English For Beginners- Stories and English For Beginners Non-Fiction sections of my website. My favorite, though, is:

* Woodlands Junior School in the United Kingdom. They have many of the same stories I have on my pages. However, there's is much better-designed and attractive.

Finally, I'd encourage people to read here about my school's use of computers to teach reading to English Language Learners, which was awarded the 2007 International Reading Association Grand Prize Presidential Award for Reading and Technology.

Larry Ferlazzo

10 comments:

Dennis said...

Larry, I much enjoyed your blog entry and your article. What I couldn't find, though, were any links to the school where you teach, including photos. Were there some I overlooked?

Best wishes from a rainy Germany,

Dennis

Ana Maria Menezes said...

Dennis,
I doon't know if this is the link you wanted but this is Larry's website. I'm a great fan of his an have been regularly visiting it.
http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/index.html

anamaria

Larry Ferlazzo said...

Thanks, Ana Maria, for responding to Dennis.

Dennis, as Ana Maria points out, my website has a bunch of photos. If you go to the Examples of Student Work page (http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/Student%20Work.html) you'll also find...examples of my student's work.

Probably the only direct link on my site I have to Luther Burbank High School, where I teach, is a link on my "About Me" page on my website that leads you to a page about...me on the school's website.

Mary H said...

Congratulations on your award and another great blog post here, Larry. Thanks for sharing what has worked in your lessons; your students must really enjoy them!

Larry Ferlazzo said...

Mary,

Thanks for your kind comments!

Larry

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John said...

There's a lot about Using Computers to teach Reading and other language skills like vocabulary at our site, www.CALL4ALL.us. It serves as a Virtual Encyclopedia on topics A-Z, which U can quickly mouse-over at very top (or bottom) of any page. For a more detailed look on one page of all topics, just scroll down the Homepage slowly to take a look. Many of the very best ESL/EFL and Language Teaching-Learning Gold Sites are featured and highlighted in both left and right menus. As well, in the top field center of page U will find links to these great tools: CALL-IS Software Summary; Best Online Collaboration Tools: MindMap by Robin Good; A-Z Directory of ~3,000 Online Learning Tools! WORLD CALL LANGUAGE LINKS LIBRARY – serves as a Free/Open Source Language Education Resource Repository to help you communicate more effectively between any two languages or cultures in the world

John Paul Loucky said...

Lots more great programs and sites to help improve learning of language using computers are found at: http://www.CALL4ALL.us. It is a Virtual Encyclopedia on topics A-Z, which U can quickly mouse-over at very top (or bottom) of any page. For a more detailed look on one page of all topics, just scroll down the Homepage slowly to take a look. Many of the very best ESL/EFL and Language Teaching-Learning Gold Sites are featured and highlighted in both left and right menus. As well, in the top field center of page U will find links to these great tools: CALL-IS Software Summary; Best Online Collaboration Tools: MindMap by Robin Good; A-Z Directory of ~3,000 Online Learning Tools! WORLD CALL LANGUAGE LINKS LIBRARY – serves as a Free/Open Source Language Education Resource Repository to help you communicate more effectively between any two languages or cultures in the world

MRWED said...

Using computers to teach reading" this is great!! Children today are hooked with computers - games and social networking sites. Most of them ignore pile of books and they prefer to hold laptops the whole day rather than having a book for an hour. But if you use computer to teach them how to read, it’s going to be fun and exciting. Thanks for this article....!!