ELA Content
In the event of a distance learning day, please check with your child's teacher regarding the specific assignments they have for their class. Below are some additional resources for you to consider to help engage your child in easy to implement research based activities that promote growth in reading and writing.
1.) Encourage your child to read independently.
The best activity your child can do during a distance learning day is to read a great book. The more your child reads, the better reader they will become. In fact, independent reading leads to an increased volume of reading that can help our readers grow in their ability to comprehend complex texts. (Allington, 2014). According to the International Literacy Association there are decades of studies that prove the positive impact independent reading has on student growth and its ability to help build student competence, confidence, and joy.
Below are two online resources for your students to use to access digital books.
Epic Books - Your child's teacher can provide them with access to Epic. This is a free resource that provides students with digital books that can be read aloud to them or students can choose to read them independently.
Sora - Sora is a gateway to the best selection of ebooks and audiobooks available to schools, spanning millions of titles from thousands of publishers. With a catalog for all interests and abilities, Sora truly offers something for all readers:
Instructional titles, pleasure reading, professional development resources2.) Engage your student in writing about what is meaningful to them.
In the same way independent reading helps improve students' ability to read, independent writing helps our students gain confidence and comfortability in composing their thoughts and putting them down on paper. It is important for students to be able to write what interests them. On an e-learning day or on any day encourage your children to write about their favorite memories and experiences, adventure stories, informational books or articles about topics they love learning about such as animals, sports, historical events, famous people, places they have or want to visit, etc.
Below are two online resources for your students to use to help your children enjoy creating their own texts:
Book Creator - Book Creator is an amazingly easy-to-use digital book-making tool with limitless options. It's available for both iPad and the web (including Chrome). With guidance, even students in early elementary school grades can use this app to produce and publish their own simple books or comics with images, videos, and audio. But given the options for adding images and multimedia, even more sophisticated students won't feel limited.
Journal Buddies -Journal Buddies is an excellent resource for journal writing prompts and resources for children of all ages. The link provides a variety of topics your children can choose from for each age group.