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"1.Charlotte's Web by E. B. White My son's school year started off with the wonderful classic Charlotte's Web. In an era where school's budgets are being slashed and creative arts are first to land on the chopping block, it's nice to see that many of the books on this list have themes of a creative talent saving the day. In this case, it's Charlotte's artistry with web making as well as her knowledge of words! My son said, "Charlotte's Web is about how Fern's pig Wilbur was going to be killed but then Charlotte (the spider) met Wilbur the day before he was going to be killed and made a plan to save Wilbur. I liked the book and my favorite character was the Gander goose." (My son seems to love the minor characters as you'll notice in his reviews!) 2.Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo If you ask me what my favorite childrens' book in the entire world is, I'll always say this one. It's a perfect chapter book in my mind where whole adds up to much more than the sum of the parts. Every character is memorable with a story to tell and somehow all these stories meld together into a satisfying ending with an uplifting message. My son says, "Because of Winn Dixie was a extremely good book and when we read it, had everybody in the class wrapped inside the book. (not literally). When we watched the movie, I liked the book a lot better because I got to see my own vision of the story and my favorite character was Otis from Gertrude's Pets." 3.The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate My oldest's third grade teacher flagged me down two years ago to tell me how much she loved this chapter book. It then went on to win the Newbery. She said that what stood out for her was voice. She's right. Ivan the Gorilla's voice draws you right in. He's like an old soul that you can't help but befriend. In some ways this book reminds me of Charlotte's Web so I like the pairing so kids can compare and contrast. Both books revolve

SpineOut is a new exciting online magazine for Young Adults, brought to you by the Good Reading team. It's a special place for Young Adults (YA's) to express their ideas and thoughts and to share their creativity in words, art, film or music. Schools and colleges subscribe to SpineOut on behalf of their students, providing access from school or home. Students are encouraged to be part of this new fun online resource by submitting reviews of newly published YA books that we provide, book trailers, poems, short stories, music lyrics, videos and art work. It is our aim that our Young Adults take this magazine on as their own, feeling free to express themselves in whichever form they wish, and then to experience the thrill of being published.

"Story Me is a free iPad app for turning your pictures into comic strips. Story Me provides more than a dozen layout options to which you can add pictures from your iPad's camera roll and or from your Facebook account. After importing pictures into a template you can apply cartoon effects to the pictures. To complete the creation process just tap on your imported pictures to add speech bubbles and captions. Your completed Story Me comics can be saved to your iPad's camera roll, emailed, printed, or shared on Twitter and Facebook. You do not need to create an account on Story Me in order to use it. Story Me is easy to use and because it doesn't require users to create an account it is a good choice for elementary school use. Pictures that students have taken with their iPads or found online can be good writing prompts. Importing those pictures into Story Me to create a comic strip could be a good way to get students interested in a creative writing assignment."

ReadWorks enables teachers to solve the reading comprehension crisis and eliminate the achievement gap in the U.S. by improving teacher effectiveness through research-based and classroom-proven instructional practices, curriculum, and open-access online technology. ReadWorks is delivered directly to teachers online, at no cost to educators or their schools. By engaging teachers and principals directly, ReadWorks circumnavigates systemic barriers to scalable, sustainable improvement in teacher effectiveness and student achievement.

"The Book Wizard Mobile application (School Edition) is a mobile extension of the Book Wizard which provides easy access to Scholastic's comprehensive database of information on more than 50,000 children's books. Hundreds of thousands of teachers already use Book Wizard online at Scholastic.com. Book Wizard Mobile will save you even more time. Teachers can search for a book or use the built-in bar-code scanner to instantly view the book's: Cover Image Title Author Interest level Reading Level by: - Grade Level Equivalent - Lexile Measure - Guided Reading Level - DRA Teachers can also: * Create and save book lists to your existing Scholastic.com account * Modify existing book lists associated with your account "

VocabularySpellingCity.com is dedicated to helping students, teachers, parent-teachers, and school systems. VocabularySpellingCity is an award-winning site with ongoing introduction of new features, many based on input from existing users. Our mission: efficient game-based study of literacy skills using any word list.

The LHS Reading Blog is a forum for students and staff at Livingston High School (Livingston, CA) to share their literary experiences and original work.

PaperRater.com is a free resource, developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students. PaperRater.com is used by schools and universities in over 46 countries to help students improve their writing.

These apps work for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. "As many students are ending the school year, a lot of teachers are assigning review units or lessons that capture all that they have learned throughout this past year. A top item on that review list is often vocabulary. Reviewing terms that you have learned or come across can be a very useful task. These words will often appear again in books, lessons and life in general! Also, they are a great test prep item! The iPad has many valuable free vocabulary apps available. Here are just a few of those for you to use!"