Reading Resources
Some websites offer stories to download for elementary students at various reading levels. Some of them are "classics" or well-known books; others can be found only online. These texts can be read aloud with a screen reader or by importing them (with copy and paste commands) into talking word processing programs.
Tumblebooks: A subscription based, online digital library of book. The books are categorized by grade and SRA level. There are additional vocabulary, comprehension, quiz and book report activities. See school websites for username and password.
Bookshare: Bookshare is an initiative of Benetech®, a nonprofit organization that combines the power of the human mind with a deep passion for social improvement. Bookshare, Benetech's first project, focuses on the challenge of access to reading materials for people with print disabilities. For sighted people, technology makes access to information easier; for people who are blind, it makes access possible. With Bookshare, a person with print disabilities can read a newspaper the same day it hits the newsstand or a best-selling book online as soon as it is released. School aged students, with print disabilities can apply for a home membership – free of charge.
Alex: A Catalog of Electronic Texts: Catalog with roughly 2,000 entries of e-texts, mostly on gopher servers.
American Library Association Great Sites: Comprehensive list of links to literature and language Web sites for children
Bartleby.com: Includes American heritage Reference Collection, encyclopedias, dictionaries, Roget Thesaurus, Quotations, etc.
eLibrary.com: On-line research database containing: newspaper and magazine articles; works of literature; television, radio, and government transcripts; and reference materials such as an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and a thesaurus
The Virginia Electronic Text Center: An extensive listing of prose and poetry e-text available for downloading
Internet Public Library: Links to picture books, short stories, poetry, myths, fables, magazines, and information about authors
Literature Online from Chadwyck: A fully searchable library of over 250,000 works of English and American literature
NaturalReaders.com: Text to Speech
Don Johnston, Inc.: Each book is published in CD-ROM and paperback format and written to exacting standards to control vocabulary, sentence complexity and phonetic regularity. Words are highlighted as they are read on each page. Clicking on a word causes it to be read again. Teacher Materials include blackline masters for writing activities, pre-reading vocabulary lists, multiple-choice questions and other support materials.
