Informational Text Free Digitial Resources: Gearing up for the Common Core

It's time for Common Core (CCSS) all over the United States, and I for one couldn't be happier. I believe these standards will demand more of students and teachers. The standards will demand a thorough, rigorous, culturally relevant, and college preparatory based education from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. If the standards are taken to heart, if teachers buy in and work to the maximum of their abilities, I have little doubt that education in the United States will not only be the strongest in the world in about 10 years, but will be the strongest educational system the world has seen. No, I'm not just a CCSS fanboy, I was skeptical just like many others, but the more I read, the more I experience, and the more I train both myself and others, the more excited I am to see what my students are capable of, and how hard and how far I can push them.

In the area of literacy, the CCSS moves classrooms into the world of informational reading and writing. In fact, by the 4th grade, students should be reading 50/50, 50% literature and 50% informational. It also demands that informational text goes deeper than just reading for fact finding. I'm guilty of this, I have too often used informational texts as nothing more than a fact hunt to use in research posters or projects, etc. But that's changing, we have to start going deeper.

This post specifically targets informational text resources that are freely available out there. For me personally, I'm able to call upon a teacher resource room with hundreds of informational texts at my school, and an online resource file of informational texts through the Pearson SuccessNet website (something that came with my districts reading adoption a few weeks back). Those two things are definitely not free and if you don't have them, you're probably not getting them anytime soon. So what to do?

Here is a list of some resources out there to get you some informational texts to your students. All you really need here is a computer, BUT, if you'd like to view these on a tablet, or have them in pdf format, that's pretty easy to accomplish (I prefer using pdfs on iPads because students can annotate them within a note taking app, and pdf documents have more of a traditional text "feel" to them.

I will be focusing on the ins and outs of the CCSS and how informational texts fit in the classroom here in the near future, but for today, let's stick to resources, because it's so much easier to jump on board when you know you have something to back you up. So here we go:

• This first link is to a free, browser based web page to pdf converter. It takes the center frame of a web page and saves it in a high quality pdf. I use this when I want students to read something from, for example, the Scholastic for Kids page, and don't want them sifting through text in the midst of side bars and links. Web 2 Pdf. Bookmark it!
• A listing of some good places to start gathering resources, in a post titled Online Sources for Informational Text at a blog called "Hello Literacy." Ignore the link to the web to pdf converter on their page called joliprint, as it is no longer in service.
• While I'm linking to some online listings (of which there are literally thousands upon thousands), there's also this page from the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards website on Informational Text Resources. There's also this post at Eye on Education. Both should give more than a few resources that you'll want to bookmark.
• At the beginning of the second page of this pdf document is multiple links to small readers on the Scholastic website, and they're really pretty good (and already in the correct format). 
• If you're not aware of The Reading and Writing Project, familiarize yourself. They are the group that did Pathways to the Common Core, a great book that's been like a CCSS literacy bible for me personally. On their site, they keep a listing of information texts called Digital Nonfiction Text Sets.

The Lightning Thief End of Book Project and Teacher Resources

The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, has become a mainstay in my reading class (my book review, located on my now defunct literacy blog, can be found HERE). For five years now, my students have been enjoying this fantastic book, and a thematic unit on Greek Mythology alongside the reading of the book. You can view my post titled Some 5th Grade Greek Mythology Resources for some great websites and information about teaching Greek Myth.

When reading The Lightning Thief, I call upon the following pages for some great resources:

• An overview of Lightning Thief resources at Rick Riordan's website: A table of contents page with tons of great resources.
• A chapter by chapter teachers guide from Rick Riordan's website: It's the first link from the above table of contents. It's an awesome resources, it's huge, comprehensive, and it's HUGE.
• A complete unit by chapters with questions and vocabulary: Again, from Rick Riordan's website (it's a great site).

Now, when you're done and you're ready to do an end of book project, I have everything you'll need right here:

• First, head off again to Rick Riordan's website for some awesome project ideas on the page titled School Project Ideas.
• Finally (this is why most of you came): The Lightning Thief end of book project (.doc format).
• If you need more explanation on the book brochure portion, seek help at my post titled Book Report Project Idea: Book Brochures.

A New, and More Difficult, Book Report Format

I have previously posted a few times about book report formats and cool book report themes. The one I used last semester was called Book Report Sandwiches, and I have also used the Book Report Brochures as both an individual book report and an end of book activity.

The sandwiches are well and good, and my class enjoyed doing the brochures very much. I kept a few of the exemplary works posted on a bulletin board in the classroom, and as you can see I constantly had many of these up there. It was a badge of honor to get a book report posted on the board, and a few students had multiples up there.

I'm going to be asking my students to do something a little more demanding... a little more "grown up" this semester. I have chosen to use what we're going to called the "detailed long format." This Detailed Long Format asks students to do quite a bit of analysis. It clocks in at 5 pages, and is very in depth for this age group. If you're looking for something a little more challenging for your students, I recommend using this format of book report. 

Some 5th Grade Greek Mythology Resources

My class will be studying a lot of Greek Mythology in the coming weeks.

Let me be a little more precise. We're reading The Lightning Thief right now, and I love to teach some Greek mythology while we're reading what has quickly become a classic in my classroom. But more on The Lightning Thief later.

My school district is mandating the use of "work stations" in reading class. This is basically just another way of saying "centers," "groups," or "guided reading." But that's another post for another day.

This post is simply just some resources about Greek Mythology that are usable in the 5th grade classroom. In my case, it will be in the reading class. Let's get started.

A lot of the things I'll be either printing out about Greek Mythology or having students read and synthesize on the internet will come from The Greek Mythology Webquest that is found on fairfieldschools.org. I pick and choose from the great selection of stories and Gods. I don't necessarily follow the webquest itself, although it is excellent if you choose to do so.

Greek Mythology for Kids - This is a listing of many resources at the timeless Mr. Donn . org (a great resource site).

BBC Primary History: Ancient Greeks - A great listing that students can use in individual research.

Winged Sandals - I can't pass on this FANTASTIC website. I'm going to have my students do some individual research this week using this great interactive, flash (or HTML) based site. The stories are interactive, are read to the students, and they can play games, download pictures, etc. It really is about as high quality as it gets.

SOME PDF DOCUMENTS:

Greek Mythology Cheat Sheet - It is what it says, a great cheat sheet for the teacher who may need to brush up a little bit (I've been there, trust me).

Yesterday's Classics - A great little reader that you can pull from for students to study a few specific Greek topics (and by a few, I mean a lot).

Listing of Greek Gods and Roman equivalents - Page 2 is a nice table that I'm going to utilize in class.

Lightning Thief Activities - I'm using this as I go through the Rick Riordan book, but there are some great activities and print outs in here that could be of service to anyone teaching Greek Myth.

Reading Interest Survey (Best Title I Could Think Of)

About four and a half years ago, I posted an interesting "Reading Interest Survey," a post that was titled Reading Interest Survey (I know, it was one of those interesting titles that just grabs your interest).

I was looking through some old posts, and decided I would take the survey again. This is one of many iterations of interest surveys that can be done with students to get some valuable, qualitative information that can help you better understand the needs, wants, and learning styles of your students.

Here are my responses. You can also click the link I have provided to be taken to a .doc version of these questions that is ready for printing: READING INTEREST SURVEY .DOC FORMAT

1. Do you like to read? I enjoy reading very much. I don't read as much for pleasure as I would like, especially during the school year, but during vacations I end up reading quite a bit.

2. How much time do you spend reading? During the school year, not much. In fact, I'll sometimes find myself going months without reading for pleasure. When I find something I'm interested in, and have time, I'll read an entire book in one sitting.

3. What are some of the books you have read lately? I just finished reading The City of Ember to my students, and we are currently reading Holes. Personally, I am working on Lucifer's Hammer, an old sci-fi classic. I'm looking for some zombie stuff so I can get back into that genre.

4. If you are going to buy a book, where would you go? My personal favorite is the used book store here in Las Cruces called Coas. It's a huge used book store that takes trade ins for credit. I can go in there and buy a basket full of books for a few dollars.

5. Do you ever get books from the school library? I'm a teacher, so yes. Usually not books for reading, but instead I usually check out books to assist with research in the classroom.

6. About how many books do you own? I have about 250 books at home, and about 600 on my shelf at school (not counting all the textbooks/dictionaries/etc.).

7. What are some books you would like to own? I REALLY want to get my hands on the entire collection of The Walking Dead comics.

8. The kind of reading I like best: Zombies, history, science fiction.

9. Do you like to read the news, either online or in the newspaper? Yes, I usually read the news either on my cell phone or on my tablet. There's a free local newspaper called the Bulletin that I like to read as well.

10. What parts of the newspaper do you like? Columnists, headlines, sports, comic strips, politics, current events, and editorials

11. What are your favorite television programs? The Walking Dead (I bet you didn't see that coming), Jeopardy, King of the Hill, Open Court, Breaking Bad.

12. How much time do you spend watching television? During the school year, probably 2-3 hours a night, during the summer, probably a lot more than that.

13. What is your favorite magazine? Wired

14. Do you have a hobby? If so, what is it? Yes, reading.

15. What are the two best movies you have ever seen? The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Inception.

16. Who are your favorite entertainers and/or movie stars? Matt Damon movies are always awesome, Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio makes good movies, and believe it or not, Brad Pitt, his movies are always good.

17. When you were little, did you enjoy having someone read aloud to you? Yes, I did. I still do.

18. List topics, subjects, etc. which you might like to read about: Zombie fiction, I love the stuff and can't find it. The Holocaust, I am immersed in the genre, and am always trying to find more.

19. What does the word 'reading' mean to you? Reading means interacting with language without speaking, with written words. That's the simple definition I guess.

20. Say anything else that you would like to say about reading: Reading opens door, it changes world views, and it has the power to shape lives.

The Giver End of Book Collaboration Project Completed

A few weeks ago my class completed their end of book collaboration projects based on the Lois Lowry book The Giver. The Giver End of Book Collaboration Project is a class project I came up with to get students working together to produce different products that show their understanding of this fantastic book. You can also download the project specifications in pdf format HERE.

I took some pictures of the things that I decided to hang up on one of our bulletin boards in the classroom:


The first two images show the bulletin board in its entirety:

These next two images show some of the art work close up.

These last two images show the triorama timeline that was made.

The Giver End of Book Collaborative Class Projects

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is a book I have posted about before, in a book review I did in 2008, and just a few months ago on the pages of this blog, in a post shrewdly titled The Giver, by Lois Lowry: Some Great Ideas for Teachers. 

As of today, September 28th, my class is nearly done with the book. In fact, we will finish the story in just a few more days. When that time comes, I plan on having my class complete a series of projects. The big push in my school district right now is collaborative learning / cooperative learning (something I've always used consistently in my classroom). It is harder to find opportunities for collaboration in reading class, especially as it relates to literature, but I've come up with a little something that is appropriate for the 5th grade classroom, and I call it simply the end of book collaboration projects.

In this, there are five projects that students can participate in. There is a mega triorama display, a collection of art work based on the story, a classroom imagining of the book of rules, advertisements to visit the community we know as "sameness," and the opportunity to re-imagine the ending, or expand upon the ending of the book. 

These projects give students the opportunity to work in their strengths, be it art, writing, or simply thinking creatively. The pdf document that I have created for this project includes a self-check for students to use, and a scoring rubric.

One word of caution here, if your students haven't finished the book, do not show them this document, it includes spoilers that would ruin the ending. This also holds true for you, the teacher. If you're reading this book for the first time, stay away from the document until you're done, I'd hate to ruin the ending for anyone. 

OK, so now for what you came for. To download this document in pdf format, simply click HERE. 

Book Report Idea: Book Report Sandwiches

My students are learning to love to read. I say learning because like so many other students, they don't see the joy in reading when it's been reduced to worksheets, basal readers, and isolated skill work.

I focus on letting my students read silently every day for 20 minutes, and when I do this, I'm reminded of my all time favorite class, 7th grade Literature with Ms. Gossett. This class was very simple, she had hundreds and hundreds of books available. We were allowed to read anything we wanted as long as it was within a year of our level below or higher. That was the whole class, we read and read and read, and produced book reports in different formats when we were done. That was the class that I actually read a novel for the first time, and I was hooked.

It's just sad that I didn't have that experience until 7th grade, and this was an advanced level course. How many students never get this opportunity?

So, to make a long story short, I ask my students to read and find something they enjoy. Of course, it's important to tie this reading into something tangible, in our case, isolated skills taught within the literary experience.

When my students are done with a book, they must produce a book report of some sort. I recently come across a great format that my entire class is "eating up," and that is the book report sandwich. This gives you the different areas of the report as bread, lettuce, tomatoes, etc., and each different ingredient of the sandwich. As I said, I came across this and can take no credit for it. I found this idea on the website for Mystic Valley Regional Chart School, and you can access this great .pdf file, it is called Sandwich Book Report. The document contains the necessary papers you would copy to make the sandwich, in both color and black and white, a scoring rubric, and some rough draft pages with prompts. It's excellent stuff!

Book Report Project Idea: Book Brochures

There are numerous, practically infinite, ways to do book reports. But, I would definitely argue that they are very important in the classroom. We want our students to read, and we want them to know that they're accountable to what they read. For me, the absolute back bone of my literacy instruction is the daily read aloud. We read books together all year, as a shared experience, and much of the reading instruction is themed around the book. For example, we just completed our first read aloud this year, The Castle in the Attic, by Elizabeth Winthrop (a fantastic choice for 4th or 5th grade read alouds, especially early in the year, HERE is a short post I did many years ago on this book).  So a lot of instruction was themed around the knights of the round table, chivalry, and castles.

But that's somewhat beside the point. At the end of each read aloud, I ask students to produce some sort of a project. One of my favorites is the book brochure. The following images will show how this brochure was assigned (there are so many ways to individualize this that it's ridiculous to even start mentioning some of those ways), and the finished products hanging on the wall.

It's simple, start with a sheet of construction paper, and fold it in thirds to look like a brochure. When you unfold the brochure, you have an inside (the inside of the flaps) and an outside. It's a great project, and students really are starting to understand that I'm asking them to step up to a higher level of quality. This is the first go around, on only the third week of school. So next time around, I'll see a sharp improvement in the quality of their brochures.

This first image shows what I assigned this go around. It includes a short opinion, a comic strip (of their favorite scene), and the students own cover art for the book. On the inside, I asked for a summary (and found out that numerous students had no idea what this was (they were putting their opinion instead of summarizing), which was good information to know and discuss), as well as four major settings, and three major themes (which is our skill for this week). Finally, they had to complete a short character file for two major characters.

This second image is the view of the cover of an exemplary brochure.

This final image shows the inside of that same brochure. 

Worksheet Works: A Great Worksheet Maker For Teachers (and it's Free)

I am constantly on the lookout for good printables. As much as I like to use technology in my classroom, and as bad of a rap as worksheets seem to get these days, they are still the backbone of many a lesson, and, if done right and used right, are a valuable resource unlike any other. I definitely am an advocate of mixing traditional, tried and true teaching practices with the newer tools.

But where do you find these worksheets? Sometimes you get lucky and have awesome curriculum, and over the years, almost all teachers collect resource books, which are shared and passed around under they literally fall to pieces. If you're looking online, there are a few guidelines. First of all, you never should have to pay for anything. There are thousands upon thousands of worksheets and resources out there in any subject, for any grade you can imagine. The best place is Google, obviously. But it can be daunting. No matter what you search for, you're bound to get tens or even hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of search results.

I came across Worksheet Works this morning while writing up some resources for a math unit. I like this site because it gives the teacher many options before building a worksheet that comes in pdf format and can be printed. I have been making worksheets and saving them in my Google Drive for the past few minutes, and they're good. I like the options, and will be showing this tool to colleagues and using it during the school year. I hope you find it helpful.

Facebook in the Classroom? Yeah, Didn't Think So

To anyone who has ever attempted to use Facebook in their classroom, you've probably been met with a block from the school district web filter. I say this is a good thing. I like Facebook as much as the next person, but it doesn't have a place in the classroom. There are so many classroom friendly alternatives out there (that's another post for another day). But what I do like is the Facebook format, and how it can be utilized in class.

Last year, I introduced a lesson that's hardly original, but somehow made it more difficult than necessary. I gave my students some cut outs of the parts of a Facebook home page (I guess it could be the timeline now), and had students construct the Facebook page of a character from the book we were reading. This year, I found a better way, using a pre-made template. I could give links to dozens of these templates, there are even entire websites dedicated to this concept, but I'm going to keep it simple. I'm just going to share the template that I'll be using, a printable pdf, I hope you like it:

Facebook Printable Template pdf

How to Determine the Reading Level of a Book at a Glance: Always Relevant Information

My old blog, a literacy education focused blog called LiteraBuss, has some posts that still draw many viewers, even though I haven't posted in two years to it. I've noticed in my discussions on reddit and other forums that there are many people out there still looking for ways to determine the reading level of a book if they can't find it easily online. There was a popular post I made in 2008 that is just as relevant today. I am re-posting it here, and have updated the dead links contained in that page. So without further delay, here is the text of How to Determine the Reading Level of a Book at a Glance.



I've done some posts in the past about determining the reading level of children/adolescent/young adult books, but they usually involve referring to some type of chart, or searching around on Amazon.com or another book site to find the reading level according to a formula.

This post is about how to quickly determine if the book is appropriate for a student (or your own child, whatever the case may be for you) just by using information you gathered from the book itself. Many children's books very obviously list this information right on the front cover. DK Readers for example have the level as a number, as well as who it is appropriate for. Scholastic books sometimes have the appropriate reader level listed near the bar code, many of the short leveled reader books that are used in elementary classrooms list the level, along with the skills that the book works on, right on the front or back cover.

So, beyond books that list the level somewhere, which is a trend we're seeing more recently, how can you find the level of a book that doesn't have this information anywhere on it? The skill of finding the level of a book on your own takes some practice, but once you have rated enough books on your own, the better you get (that's right, it's the ol' "practice makes perfect" thing).

There are many methods that teachers have been using in their own classroom to determine if a book is an appropriate book for that certain child. Leveling a book on the spot is usually done to see if it fits a certain child.

The "five finger rule" is a mainstay that you'll hear about anywhere you go. Basically, open the book up to a random page, and have the student read that page. Every time they miscue (pass a word or miss it), hold up a finger. If they miss five on that page, it's not a good book for them. This method has served many teachers well for a very long time.

The reason the methods like the "5 finger rule" have been around and continue to be used is because they apply book leveling to the individual child, which only makes sense. All the book levels in the world won't do you any good if that child can't pick up the book and read it.

Variations of the five finger rule include:

• Vocabulary picking: Go through one chapter of the book (roughly 5 pages) and see if you can find more than 20 words that could be given for vocabulary. That is, 20 words that the student won't know. If you can do it, this isn't a good book for that child to read.
• Check back: Go ahead and give the child this book. After two chapters (depending on the length), check their understanding of the book. This should be fairly obvious, but will only work if you have an understanding of the book.

There's millions of different ways to check, at a glance, if a child should read a certain book. The examples I have given so far mainly gravitate around fluency. But comprehension should not be ignored, because, ultimately, it is what matters most.

Now, the school district I work for has always been interested in fluency. How fast can a child read versus how many mistakes they make over time, that's the basic formula for fluency. So, just because a child can read 160 words per minute (which is excellent for any child under the age of 14), does that make them a good reader? Of course not. With the focus on fluency, many students have learned to become what we call "word callers." They know the words and can read them quickly. The main problem, however, is a disconnect between fluency and comprehension. I've also had students who read 65 words per minute (considered slow or deficient in intermediate grades), but comprehends on an advanced level. So speed isn't the best way to go.

When I sit down to determine if a child should be reading a certain book, I want to know if they can handle the structure and words of the story, but I also want to know if they understand the content. Take me for example. I'm working on a doctorate, so in theory, I am one of the highest educated people on the planet. This means that I should be able to pick up any book written in my language and read it for comprehension. Yes, I could pick up any book and read it, but understand it? That's a different story. If I read a book on bio-chemistry, I'd probably actually comprehend less than half, and this is a cultural/situational comprehension issue with reading.

Students who don't know a thing about the Holocaust are going to struggle reading about it, because the background knowledge isn't there. Take this into account as well. Comprehension checks done on the fly only work if you, the instructor, have a rudimentary understanding of the book you're trying to scrutinize. If it's a classroom read aloud, you can lay some background for the students, but if it's an individual reader, you probably don't have the time to do this, so make sure it's appropriate in terms of fluency, comprehension, content, and will hold the interest of the child.

Wow, that's a lot to take in. But this is what good literacy instruction involves, good, appropriate, individualized literacy instruction. Many issues must be taken into account when determining the level of a book for a child. Is the child fluent without comprehension, or vice versa? Is there an English Language Learner (ELL) issue in play that must be addressed? Is there a lack of background knowledge on the topic? These are just a few questions you need to ask yourself.

Now this is all well and good, but what if you came here searching for how to level books because you want to level an entire library for later use? This isn't hard, because you obviously have the internet (or you wouldn't be reading this). Scholastic has a Teacher Book Wizard that lists levels of many books out there. I did a post back in April titled How They Determine the Reading Level of A Book, and it offers some resources, including some comparison charts to interpret book levels done through different leveling systems and/or formulas.

Finally, if you are on your own, you can involve a little intuitive guesswork. I've done this before. If you can't find any information about the book online through some Google detective work, then read a few pages of the book, compare it to other books of similar levels, and guess at it.

Some basic formulas (along with their link to Wikipedia) that are used to determine the reading level of a book include:

• Fry Readability Formula
• Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
• Dale-Chall Readability Index (pdf document)
• SMOG Readability Formula also The SMOG Interactive Calculator, also available HERE

I hope that this information can be of service to you. Please let me know if it was, or if there are things you're trying to find out or understand that I didn't touch on here.

Online Book Collection: Scholastic Listen and Read

In some searching for online book resources, I came across Scholastic Listen & Read, a collection of 54 stories in high quality, online format.

What makes these books great is the simplicity. Some of the content is appropriate for 4th and 5th graders (the Constitution, Presidents, Ecology, etc.), but the reading is more on level for a 2nd or 3rd grader, especially at Level B. The text can also be spoken aloud within the web browser. This is a great tool for younger students, and possibly the struggling readers in the upper Elementary grades. I recommend giving it a quick look.