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Madison Karnes
Dr. Richard Burke
ENGL 414-A
Resources for Children’s Literature
29 September 2015
Resources for Children’s Literature
Section I.: Useful websites with useful information about reading/children’s literature

Kids Reads

http://www.kidsreads.com/

The Book Report Network, headed by co-founder and president Carol Fitzgerald

Geared towards an elementary school classroom, Kids Reads is an extremely
useful tool for teachers in the classroom. This website provides teachers with
book reviews, excerpts, author interviews, a blog to respond to class reads and
lists of great new books to use in the classroom. Another handy feature of this
website is the “Games” section which offers teachers access to words games and
materials to use with the different types of children’s literature. This website also
provides teachers with a weekly newsletter with new ideas of how to use the “kids
reads” in the class.

Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site

http://www.carolhurst.com/

Rebecca Otis (previously Carol Hurst, 1933-2007)
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
This website, although it appears outdated, is constantly updated almost every
month. Though not aesthetically pleasing this website offers teachers many useful
resources that can be used in the classroom. It provides teachers with a database
of books that could be read, activities to use with the books, connections to
different authors and a teachers resource page. It also gives teachers links to other
similar literature sties that teachers could use with their students.

One of my favorite aspects of this site was that it categorizes books by
“Curriculum,” “Subjects/Themes,” and “Books.” It gives teachers the option to
sort books by a specific theme and find information and tips on how to teach a
specific book with a theme. For example, if you were to click on the theme
“Airplanes,” the site provides you with ideas about how to introduce the topic,
which children’s literature books follow the theme, and other electronic resources
that could be used when teaching this subject.

Scholastic Book Wizard

http://www.scholastic.com/bookwizard/

Scholastic Inc.

This site is an advanced online database of children’s literature that can aid
teachers in finding grade level specific books, theme specific books, and subject
specific books. It allows teachers to adjust reading levels between age, Guided
reading, Mckenna groups, DRA and Lexile Measure. It will sort through the
books for the teacher and can aid them in making an online booklist to keep track
of what the class is reading, and what they will be reading. It also offers teachers
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the option of finding books by genres and series. These books can be purchased
straight from the site and it will check availability of the books at other sites.

Story Place

https://www.storyplace.org/front

Institute of Museum and Library Services, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

Story Place is an interactive website that offers teachers and students the
experience of a digital learning library. This interactive site, mainly geared
towards the lower elementary grades, provides users with a “virtual”
library experience, offering online stories, online activities, videos, and
reading lists of books that can go along with specific subjects. After
students complete a section or review a sections online materials, there is
the option to find books that go along with the topic.

This site is exceptionally useful for young readers and users, it keeps them
on task and active in the reading process by including exciting activities to
complete as they learn. Story Place is also a flexible tool because it can be
used in a whole class setting or individually.

Education World

www.educationworld.com

Education World Inc.

This website is a complete online resource for teachers to use, not only
just for reading and teaching children’s literature, but for all subjects. This
website aids teachers in finding other online materials to use in class,
connecting teachers with useful resources and activities that they can use
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with their curriculum, news briefs and topics that pertain to education,
lesson plans, printables, worksheets and other classroom-ready resources,
as well as reviews of apps, websites and tech products, and lastly, library
of professional development articles and columns.

This website aided me in the compilation of my own teacher’s resource
list. It provided me with useful websites that connected students with
children’s literature.
Section II.: Three non-web resources about reading/teaching children’s literature

Literature Notes: Ideas and Activities for Children’s Literature (Handouts)

Various authors (depending on which note set you get) including Phyllis Bass,
Sara Freeman, Shiloy Sanders, and Cynthia Nagel, published by Frank Schaffer
Publications Inc.

These literature notes are a valuable addition to any classroom because they give
teachers a background of the book they will be reading with students, activities
and worksheets to go along with the books, as well as critical thinking strategies
that the teacher can share with students. These literature notes can be found to go
along with many books and give the teacher a synopsis, the themes of the book,
bulletin board ideas, art activities, as well as language arts connections. They can
help a teacher prepare for a quick and easy lesson, and give them ideas that many
people would have never thought of on their own.

Reading and Writing in Elementary Classrooms: Research Based K-4 Instruction
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
Patricia M. Cunningham, James W. Cunningham, Sharon Arthur Moore and David
E. Moore; Reading and Writing in Elementary Classrooms: Research Based K-4
Instruction; Boston, MA, Allyn and Bacon, 2004, 524 pages (including index)

I think that this book is particularly important to teachers introducing children’s
literature into a younger audience. This book provides teachers with an in-depth
study of reading in the classroom, and essentially teaching children how to read.
One section of the book provides teachers with a list of different genres that
teachers should explore in the diverse world of children’s literature. It then
describes further how teachers should use these books in the classroom, whole
group, small group and dynamic grouping. This book really helps teachers in
deciding how to recognize the different stages of reading that every student
presents. It also offers teachers academic based questions and activities to help
guide them in the reading process.

Teaching Children’s Literature in the 21st Century (Academic Journal)

Teaching Children’s Literature in the 21st Century; Mathis, Janelle B., Seemi
Aziz, Thomas Crisp, Jennifer M. Graff, Ted Kesler, Lauren Liang, Diane Carver
Sekeres, and Lori Willfong; The Journal of Children’s Literature, published
Quarterly, Spring 2014.

This specific journal, published by The Journal of Children’s Literature, would be
valuable to a classroom teacher because it provides them with a variety of modern
activities that they can implement in the classroom in correlation with children’s
books. This journal article was published after a session of the Master Class of
Teaching Children’s Literature met and discussed introducing cutting-edge topics
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and infusing them with traditional children’s literature. It discusses several unique
strategies to implement during lessons including paired text/close readings, multicultural literary projects, inquiry projects and online learning forums and blogs.
Section III.: Five characteristics of distinguishing reliable websites
Many of the websites found online are truly not credible resources to use in the classroom. Many
different factors play into whether or not a website is credible including the publishing date, who
the author is, the domain etc..
1. Locate the author of the webpage. Is an author listed? If so, how is this person an expert
on the information found on the website? Do they have credentials enough to provide you
with this information so that it will be considered accurate?
2. Find out the publishing domain of the website. Different suffixes have different meanings
as to what information you will find on a website. For example, the most credible and
accurate information that you will find to use in the classroom will be found on websites
ending in .gov and .edu. Other websites include .com, which stands for commercial, and
.org, which stands for a non-profit organization. These kinds of websites can contain
bias/unreliable information.
3. Locate a date on the information that you will be using. When was the information
published? Is the information considered relevant or out of date?
4. Is the website well designed, especially for teacher resources? Can you find a section on
the website devoted to Teacher Resources or anything else dealing with teaching in the
classroom?
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5. Lastly, make sure that the author cites their sources. If the author is not able to tell you
where the information they are providing you with is coming from, this is not a credible
source to use in the classroom.

Lee College; Library: Emma Wood Carlson

https://www.edb.utexas.edu/petrosino/Legacy_Cycle/mf_jm/Challenge%201/website%20
reliable.pdf