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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

he Swedish fairy tale "The King's Choice", published on the Web site Whootie Owl's Stories to Grow By, is an excellent tool for teaching students to make predictions. Print out a copy of the story to read aloud to students. Before reading the story, you might mark the following places in the story where you will want to pause to ask What do you think will happen next? You might have students share their predictions orally, or you might have them record their predictions in writing on a sheet of paper or in their writing/reading journals. Pause after the opening paragraph, which ends Any of the councilors could rise to become a fine leader, thought the King, but which one had the necessary inner strength? to ask students which of the King's councilors they think might be best suited to take the King's place. Pause after paragraph 7, which ends The wind whirled about, wrapping his woodcutter's garments tightly around him. Meanwhile, the boat nearly tipped over and the voices on board shrieked. to ask students to predict what will happen next in the story. Pause after paragraph 18, which ends The King continued, "I will announce my decision at a royal banquet to be held the day after tomorrow." to ask students to predict what will happen the next day? Who will show up for the King's royal banquet, since all of the councilors have already committed to being at the woodcutter's feast? Who might be chosen at the royal banquet to take over the King's role? Have students record the next -- final -- prediction in writing; they should record the reasons behind their predictions, including information from the parts of the story already read that lead them to think that way. Pause after paragraph 27, which reads An hour later, a frazzled Lukas was led before the King's throne. to ask students to predict what might happen next in the story. After sharing the fairy tale "The King's Choice" with students and giving them several opportunities to predict what will happen

Word Stash is a vocabulary building tool that takes flashcards to a whole new level. With interactive definitions, this web tool makes learning new words fun. Pre-set lists for exams like the SAT make it easy to get started. Users can also listen to the words pronounced, see great examples of them in real-life articles, and even share them with peers via social networks like Twitter. There are currently 200,000 words in the bank and users can add any other words they would like. This is a great tool for learning new words or creating a list of words to review for subjects ranging from English to Science.

"ead With Me is a new mobile application that makes student reading fluency assessments easier to administer. The benefits of using Read With Me includes: a library of passages ready to use; fast and accurate calculations of words per minute read, number of errors; easy to share reports to parents, students, and staff involved in student's educational progress; and an all digital solution avoiding endless piles of photocopies."

"Progressive Phonics is an all-in-one reading program that is easy, fun, and totally FREE---that's right, totally and completely free! And with Progressive Phonics, ANYONE can teach a child to read and write in just a few minutes a day, which makes it ideal for parents, teachers, tutors, volunteers and home-schoolers."

WritingFix is a teacher resource website that contains lessons and ideas for any educator to freely use in their K-12 classrooms. * Writing Prompts: WritingFix features a variety of writing prompts, all designed to quickly get a student or a whole classroom writing in their journals or writers notebooks. Hover over "Writing Prompts" in the blue menu bar (upper left corner) to see the categories of writing prompts that we feature. * Writing Lessons inspired by Mentor Texts: WritingFix features a variety of lessons, all inspired by different mentor texts. Hover over "Mentor Text Lessons " in the blue menu bar (upper left corner) to see the categories of writing prompts that we feature. * Writing Traits: WritingFix features a variety of resources that are inspired by the six writing traits. These include posters, post-its, one-page resources, and thorough lessons. Hover over "6 Trait Materials" in the blue menu bar (upper left corner) to see the specific pages dedicated to 6-trait topics. * Writing Across the Curriculum: WritingFix challenges educators to teach writing not just during language arts and reading time, but also during science, history, math, and other blocks of classroom time. When a student can write about a topic, he/she can be pushed to show deeper thinking about the topic. Hover over "Across the Curriculum" in the blue menu bar (upper left corner) to see the variety of resources we offer for writing outside of language arts. * WritingFix Inservice Classes: At present, we only offer our classes in Northern Nevada; all of the resources we post, however, come with enough explanation so that any teacher could make sense of the tool without having to attend our face-to-face version of the class. Our Northern Nevada classes are very popular and well-reviewed by participants. Hover over "WritingFix Inservices" in the blue menu bar (upper left corner) to jump directly to any of our webpages dedicated to specific inservice workshops.

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can: * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go, * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer, * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen, * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book. There are six ways to get started with Lit2Go: 1. Browse by Author: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2. Browse by Title: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 3. Browse by Reading Level (Flesch-Kincaid*): K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 4. Browse by Subject Matter: African-American Literature, Florida, Mathematics, Science 5. Search Database. You can search the collection by title, author, or keywords. 6. Launch iTunes. If you have iTunes software installed on your computer, you can download many of the selections directly into your iTunes library. The free iTunes application for either Macintosh or Windows computers may be downloaded directly from Apple, Inc. "

Shmoop's approach is an online version of Cliff's Notes with links to other resources. Their mission is to "make learning and writing more fun and relevant for students in the digital age." "Shmoop wants to help you become a better lover (of literature an

`A wiki\ndebate visualization tool that lets you: present the strongest case on any\ndebate that matters to you; openly engage the opposing arguments; create\nand reshape debates, make new points, rate and filter the arguments;\nmonitor the evolution of debates via RSS feeds; and, share and reuse the\ndebates on and offline.`

"Our mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of Central Florida residents by providing educational resources, programs, and training opportunities through in-person presentations and the Internet. Targeting at risk children and adults, we encourage them to reach their highest potential by discovering the rewards and joy of reading. "

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.