FINDING AND USING READING MATERIALS

LYNN W ZIMMERMAN, PHD

EXTENSIVE READING

Reading for pleasure

Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org)

Bartleby (www.bartleby.com)

Bibliomannia (www.bibliomania.com)

Online Books Page (digital.library.upenn.edu/books)

Good Reads (www.goodreads.com)

READING COMPREHENSION FOR EXAMS

Exam sites such as TOEFL, CAE and IELTS

• have texts with interactive practice tests that students can use to practice reading comprehension.

Flo-Joe (www.flo-joe.co.uk)

• ready-made reading quizzes and passages of text with exercises.

• Various levels • Various topics.• Include strategies and procedures for dealing with texts

ONLINE NEWSPAPER SITES

Many are free.

Back issues are archived

Can search using keywords

Can print, copy, paste, and save to your computer

Many can be used effectively in the classroom either online or offline

NEWSPAPER EXAMPLES

The Sun www.thesun.co.uk

Daily Telegraph www.telegraph.co.ok

The Australian www.australian.com.au

Daily Times Nigeria http://www.dailytimes.com.ng/

USA Today www.usatoday.com

ONLINE NEWSPAPER PORTALS

Yahooligans!, a child-oriented website

• http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/News/Newspapers

Newseum

• www.newseum.org/cybernewseum Click Front pages

Free Online Newspapers.com

• http://www.free-onlinenewspapers.com/usa-news-papers-list.html

CREATE YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER

Crayon.net

A tool for managing news sources

Create a customized newspaper with links to predefined news sources

• automatically connects to the newspapers of one’s choice

• extracts news stories from them

CHILDREN’S E-ZINES

EEK: Environmental Education for Kids (Ages 9-14)

• www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/index.htm

Midlink Magazine (Ages 8-18)

• www.cs.ucf.edu/~Midlink

Stone Soup Magazine (Ages 8-13)

• www.stonesoup.com/index.html

Scholastic News (Ages 8-14) http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews

WireTap (Ages 14 and up)

• www.alternet.org/wiretap

VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP ACTIVITY

In pairs, choose one of these art museum websites to visit

The Louvre (www.louvre.fr) – choose English

The National Gallery (www.nationalgallery.org.uk)

The Art Institute of Chicago (www.artic.edu)

The Uffizi Gallery (www.uffizi.firenze.it)

The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (www.moma.org)

INSTRUCTIONS

In pairs, visit one of these websites. Look at information for visitng the museum, and record the hours for a Sunday visit and the cost for 1 adult. Then locate a famous piece of art at the museum. Fill out the chart with the required information.

Using the information in the chart, write a 75-125 word paragraph describing your “trip” to the museum and the piece of art you chose.

Post on Facebook.

REFERENCE

Krajka, J. (2007). English language teaching in the Internet-assisted environment. Lublin, Poland: Maria Curie-Sklodowska Univeristy Press.