ReadWriteThink rocks: with free apps

If it’s been a while since you’ve returned to ReadWriteThink, I urge you to consider a visit today.

The quality portal, rich with free resources and sponsored by the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Verizon Foundation has grown even more interactive.

So what’s new?  There’s an array of simple, elegant mobile apps available for iOS and Android that may be discovered by browsing grade level, type, learning objectives and theme.

Aligned to standards, the apps mirror and are supported by the site’s existing lesson plans, interactivites, and professional development materials.
Because they are designed for school use, the profile system does not require email or personal information.  Multiple users can create and store their work on the same device.  Products may be stored and edited, shared, printed and emailed.

I made a little screencast of the Trading Card Creator, which like the other tools, is available as a web interactive or an app for iOS or Android.

A Venn Diagram Creator offers an easy strategy for comparing and contrasting. Users can choose any number of circles, re-color and resize them.

Word Mover allows students to move and manipulate text to create found poetry by choosing from word banks, existing famous works, or by adding words of their own choice.

The Haiku Poem App guides young poets through writing the traditional Japanese form–from brainstorming words, through building poems with prompts for syllables, to presenting their poetic creations with a background from the app’s library or an uploaded image of their own choice.

These tools need not be used in isolation.  They connect to professionally designed instructional materials.

Many of these thoughtful, flexible and free interactive learning tools may be used K though 12.

They deserve a space on the screens small and large.

You may also want to check out ReadWriteThink’s very helpful series of videos on Literacy in Action.

Filed under: apps, Common Core, literacy, media literacy, reading, technology, video, writing