The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
The TCRWP is an incredibly valuable website. It includes a host of resources teachers find useful including genre specific booklists, social studies resources, samples of student writing as well as a variety of assessments for reading, writing and spelling. Some of the reading assessments available include concepts about print, letter and sound identification, high frequency word lists and two sets of running records. For writing, the Narrative Writing Continuum is a great tool for assessing and planning for whole class, small group instruction and one-on-one conferences. (Note: there are additional resources posted on the site, however, they are password protected.)
Newslinks is a free email newlsetter from Stenhouse Publishers, which is sent out twice a month. Each issue features news about Stenhouse titles and authors, as well as links to professional development resources (e.g., articles, podcasts, study guides) available on the Stenhouse website or elswhere around the Web.
The Heinemann Teacher's Lounge is a space dedicated to teachers, a place for teachers talk with peers and grow professionally. Some of the features include a series of informative and engaging podcasts with expert authors as well as forums for discussions with colleagues around the country (e.g., discussion boards, blogs).
Well respected authors Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, also known as "The Sisters," have created this site for teachers, staff developers, parents and administrators who are familiar or are interested in learning more about their literacy work. Their professional publications, specifically, The Daily 5, The Cafe and Classroom Design have helped teachers rethink their literacy practices and classroom environment. Boushey and Moser developed their online site to provide ongoing support to teachers who wanted to implement The Cafe and Daily 5 into their literacy curriculum. The site provides an overview of their work as well as sample resources (e.g., cafe menus for early, trasitional, fluent readers). For members there are informative and engaging podcasts, videos, articles and template tools available. (Note: there are several membership options; three-month and annual which are quite inexpensive.)
Grammar Girl is a wonderful site that has tips and grammar exercises to help teachers and students learn and remember all the grammar rules on punctuation, word choice, and more. Membership to the site is free and offers subscribers options for receiving Quick and Dirty Tips which include email newsletter, Podcasts, RSS feeds.
New York State Department of Education
The NYSDE site provides a variety of resources about student testing and assessment (e.g., sample ELA exams, scoring guides), curriculum, instruction and standards (e.g., Common Core State Standards) and instructional resources. There is also an abundance of information related to teacher certification, professional standards, and professional development on the site.
The Common Core Standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework for preparing students, K-12, for college and the workforce. (The standards, in other words, define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers.) Consistent standards are necessary because they provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live. Teachers, adminstrators and parents are encouraged to learn more about the recently published standards which can be downloaded and viewed on the site.
Association for Library Service to Children
This website is a great resource for teachers, parents and students. It contains a host of materials, particularly noteworthy are list of book titles that were awarded the Caldecott and Newberry medals. The site also includes the annual ALSC Notable Children's Booklists which teachers use when selecting books for read aloud and their classroom library.
This social media site also focuses on books. Members can build virtual bookshelves, discover, rate and discuss books, and participate in online groups. Teachers and students find the site particularly helpful for gathering and sharing book recommendations. (Note: membership is free.)
This site offers a variety of specialty list collections which include national award winning book collections as well as recommendations to support social studies, math and science curriculum areas. Booksource also has the literature collections recommended in many of the top selling literacy professional texts (e.g., Reading With Meaning by Debbie Miller, Nonfiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey, Nonfiction Craft Lessons by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi).
This Scholastic website provides several resources (e.g., Book Alike, Quick Search, Leveled Search) that are helpful to teachers in organizing and leveling the classroom library, helping students select books of interest for independent reading and planning for small group work.
This site is a round up of "best of" lists and children's literature prizes for books published which include recent and past (i.e., archives of booklists) booklists. The numerous booklists span genres, topics, ages (e.g., primary, intermediate, teen, adult) as well as countries of publication. Another helpful resource included on the site are articles about books and reading.