Recommended Language Arts Resources

(Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar)

Writing is like math -- doing it once a week isn't enough. In order to get good at it, you must practice almost daily. During your week, notice how often you write something down. Could these tasks be shared by your child? Ask for help the next time you need to jot down a name and phone number in your address book, write down directions or a shopping list or a recipe, or leave a note for someone. Can your child help to address letters, write thank-you notes, label jars, note appointments and events in your calendar, learn to take down telephone messages?

Inspire your child to write and read more with frequent trips to the library, discussions about what they are reading, and requests to hear their new poems and stories. Friends and relatives can help build your child's self-esteem by asking your child to read his or her favorites pieces aloud.

	Encourage your child to Post a Review of a favorite (or hated!) book or movie or to send us a poem.
Become a published author (or artist)! Launch Pad is a new online magazine publishing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book reviews, and artwork by children ages 6-12. For upcoming issues, they are looking for creative works on: The Ocean Fairy Tales & Fantasy Heroes Mysteries Sports/Summer Fun Variety (any topic) Check out their submission guidelines.

Page Index

Books

(see the Books page for ordering information)

General books on writing

• Popular Weasel Press offers writing courses for middle and high school, specially designed for homeschoolers. They also run summer writing camps.
• The Icky Bug Alphabet Book by Jerry Palotta
• Blank books are available from www.barebooks.com
• The Grammar of Fantasy, by Gianni Rodari. An introduction to the art of writing stories.
• Growing Up Writing, by Linda Leonard Lamme (Highlights for Children, publisher). Sharing the joys of good writing with your children.
• Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. Freeing the writer within.

Amusing books on punctuation:

• archy and mehitabel, by Don Marquis (ask your child to punctuate it!)
• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, by Karen E. Gordon
• Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss.
• The New Well-tempered Sentence, by Karen E. Gordon (Caution: Karen Gordon can be a bit racy and occasionally uses bold (not foul) language.)

On grammar, spelling, and form:

• AVKO Educational Research Foundation. AVKO is a spelling curriculum, based on spelling patterns, that was designed for the dyslexic student which makes it an easy program for anyone.
  One parent’s review: "We used the AVKO spelling program with my son, who was an atrocious speller. Before this we tried every approach out there, to no avail. AVKO has done two things: helped him spell better, and (more importantly) given him confidence that he CAN learn to spell!"
• Daily Language Workouts from Houghton Mifflin's Great Source. This is a workbook series with a 15-minute daily exercise on correcting mistakes on writing (grammar and punctuation), for every grade level.
• Explode the Code and Beyond the Code, workbook series on phonics and early language arts skills from Educational Publishing Service.
• Rules of the Game, by Mary Page, Peter Guthrie, Sloan Sable. Grammar through discovery for middle and high school.
• Writers Inc., a student handbook, companion to the Daily Language Workout
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• You are the Editor, by Eric Johnson, Fearon Teacher Aids. At B & N for $14.99. ISBN #: 082247696-7 (teaches proofreading and correcting skills, grades 3 - 6)
• Grammar Town, and other titles, by Michael Clay Thompson, from Royal Fireworks Press, clearly and succinctly teaches all four levels of sentence analysis using a rich vocabulary. They also offer a vocab and grammar for middle school, though if you haven't had a strong background in grammar you'll want to start with Grammar Town.
• Basic grammar review worksheets can be printed out at: EdHelper.com and Enchanted Learning

See also Scholastic Workbooks

On handwriting:

• Handwriting without Tears, by Jan Z. Olsen.
• Loops and Other Groups, by Mary D. Benbow.

On poetry:

Read some Poems by Kids and also some Poems by Laurie.

See our list of Poetry Competitions.

Books

• Awakening the Heart, by Georgia Heard (poetry teaching ideas)
• Favorite Poetry Lessons for Children and Teaching Ten Fabulous Form of Poetry, by Paul B. Janeczko (workbooks)
• Metaphors and Similes You Can Eat, by Orel Protopopescu
• Poetry in Three Dimensions, by Carol Clark and Alison Draper (workbooks ages 12+ from Educators Publishing Service)
• Trust the Children, by Anna Kealoha
• Wishes, Lies and Dreams and Rose, Where did You Get That Red?, by Kenneth Koch
• FEG: Ridiculous Poems for Intelligent Children, by Robin Hirsch, for creative word play
• Edward Lear, famous for his limericks and nonsense rhymes. Try reading his "botanical" pieces while studying botany, and invent your own plants!

Websites

• The Poetry Zone
• Forms of Poetry for Children
• Giggle Poetry - funny poetry for kdis
• Poetry for Kids - lots of resources
• Poets House, 72 Spring Street, Second Floor. (212) 431-7920.
• The Poetry Library (UK). The library has a great website that includes education resources and "create your own virtual poem."
• Urban Word NYC offers workshops and performance opportunities for teens.

On reading and writing

• Between the Lions. From PBS, a website complementing the TV literacy series. For kids 4 - 7.
• Impact, Fifty Short Stories, Fannie Safier, ed. For grades 6 - 10, an out-of-print English textbook, an excellent collection of international short stories, teaches reading comprehension, vocabulary, plot, setting, character development, style, and even geography by learning about the origins of each author. Find it used at Amazon.com or Abebooks.com
• Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech (grades 3 - 5), for reluctant writers
• SCORE reading guides K-12
• Teach Your Child to Read, by Engelman. One parent's comments: We used this book with three of our kids. It's easy, relaxed, and fully scripted. It takes maybe 10-15 minutes of snuggling up together each day to do. And for us, at least, it's worked wonderfully. There is a little reading comprehension built in, since there's a picture to go with each story, and questions about the story and picture to ask the child. The advantage, as I see it, of using a program like this is that it gently systematizes phonetic information, allowing the child to progress at a very gratifying pace. I can't speak to whether or not every child has a 2nd grade comprehension level at the end of the book, because we never made it all the way to lesson 100. Somewhere between lesson 65 and 75 my kids shifted to reading real books and never looked back.

Scholastic Workbooks:

These books are slim and easy to use, some with reproducible worksheets that can be used again and again.

• 50 Writing Lessons That Work!: Motivating Prompts and Easy Activities That Develop the Essentials of Strong Writing, by Carol Rawlings Miller, grades 4 - 8, paperback, 64 pages.
• Awesome Activities To Help Reluctant Writers Succeed: Strategies, Mini-Lessons, and Motivating Activities To Boost Writing Skills and Writing Confidence, by Perdita Finn, grades 4 - 8, paperback 64 pp.
• The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever, by Barbara Mariconda, grades 2 -4, paperback $14.95
• Paragraph Writing Made Easy (grades 4-8), by Rosemary Shiras and Susan Cary Smith, Scholastic, ISBN# 0-439-20764-9 (teaches standard paragraph form by constructing a topic sentence with three additional sentences. Also teaches note-taking skills by deconstructing the same paragraphs.)
• Super Story-Writing Strategies and Activities, by Barbara Mariconda, grades 3 -6, paperback $10.95
• Teaching Memoir Writing: 20 Easy Mini-Lessons & Thought-Provoking Activities That Inspire Kids to Reflect on and Write About Their Lives, by Perdita Finn, Grades 4 - 8, Paperback 64 pp

Vocabulary Building:

• FreeRice, an altruistic vocabulary building/testing site, fun for kids to play at home.
• Learning Vocabulary Fun
• Vocabulary Building links and recommendations.
• Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student, by H. Levine, N. Levine & R. Levine has chapters with Greek roots, Latin roots, etc.
• Vocabulary Instruction - links and ideas from the University of Connecticut.
• Wordly wise 3000, workbook series for all grades, from Educators Publishing Service (this publisher also carries workbooks on phonics and grammar for all levels)

Games

All these games help with spelling and vocabulary.

• Dream Green has the award-winning A-B-C Oy!
• Boggle, available from Amazon.com
• Crossword puzzles
• Hangman
• Scrabble, available from Amazon.com
• Wordfinder puzzles

Websites

Websites for the parent or educator

• EDSITEment, resources from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Elementary Education Resources: Language Arts: Writing (dictionaries, thesaurus, tons of stuff)
• English Language Arts. Curriculum etc. from NYS Education Department.
• English Online, materials for teaching and learning.
• JBCheaney.com website of author Cheaney, with free resources on teaching Shakespeare.
• Language Arts Standards
• The Learning Page from the Library of Congress. Includes lesson plans that make use of the Library's resources.
• The Literacy Web from the University of Connecticut.
• The Literary Link for teachers in Grades 1-8 through High School as well as College undergraduate and graduate students of Literature.
• Mrs. Dowling's Virtual Classroom. Seventh grade reading and language arts.
• New York State Literary Tree
has listings and contact information for all the public and private libraries and bookstores in New York plus complete information about ongoing national literary events.
• Professor Pen's Favorite Writing Links for Teachers
• Read Write Think, developed by the International Reading Association and The National Council of Teachers of English, ReadWriteThink provides resources and best practices for educators in both reading and language arts subject areas. This site features lesson plans and more.
• Regents Examination: English Languag Arts (past examinations and the answers)
  • Preparation for NYS Regents Examination: English Languag Arts
• TeachIt's library of free English teaching resources. From the U.K., so watch the spelling!
• TeacherSource from PBS.

Websites for kids:

• Cool Reads, for ages 10 - 15, print and read book reviews here.
• Go Grammar has explanations and activities.
• Merlyn's Pen, fiction, essays and poems by America's teens.
• Poetry4kids, funny poems for kids.
• Quiz Tree - free online English quizzes.
• Word Central, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary folks
• Sign up to receive weekly installments of a Sherlock Holmes novel, printed the way it was originally, complete with illustrations. They (Stanford University) also have archived copies of three Dickens novels done the same way. This is a cool way to experience how some books used to be written -- and read.
• Word Activities - online puzzles.