Supporting students reading development

There are a number of online sites which can be used to support the students reading development. These include:

Student Writings

South Tipperary ALS Student Writing Blog. This site contains writings by the students of the South Tipperary Adult Learning Scheme. There is an audio button at the start of each article so that the student can hear the article read. This site also includes software which allows the student or tutor to highlight any word in the article and learn more about it through Wikipedia,Video and Images.

http://southtippals.blogspot.com/

California Distance Learning Project

Adult Learning Activities

Supports reading development. Site contains articles with audio and learning activities based on the articles.

http://www.cdlponline.org/

Simple English News

Current News stories with audio.

http://www.simpleenglishnews.com/

The Learning Edge

The Learning Edge is an online newspaper for Adult Literacy Students to help reading and comprehension. It has articles with audio and comprehension questions and activities.

http://www.thewclc.ca/edge/issue1/index.html

UDL Editions by CAST

Leveled supports for reading strategies and author's craft

Context-specific multimedia glossary

Enrichment activities

Multimedia resources for background information

Texthelp Toolbar for text-to-speech, highlight and gather, dictionary and encyclopedia links.

http://udleditions.cast.org/index.html

Marshall Education –Reading Skills for todays adults

http://marshalladulteducation.org/reading-skills-for-todays-adult

Awsome Stories Website

This site contains many narrated historical stories. You need to be signed up for the site to hear the narrations. Registration is free.

http://www.awesomestories.com/narrations

The Art of Storytelling

http://www.artofstorytelling.org/2008/01/15/milking-time-story-by-william-zigmont-and-cynthia-disciullo

There are a host of online book sites where students have access to texts.

These books can be read online or downloaded and saved.

For example, Project Gutenberg, is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive and distribute cultural works. Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. Project Gutenberg has over 24,000 items in its collection.

These texts combined with Text Aloud or Word Talk Software can be useful tool for reading development.

See:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page