Learning Together

Dogs who listen to children reading

Scheme aims to encourage children to read aloud

When children read to him, Danny does not criticise or correct their pronunciation. He just nods and pricks up an ear, although sometimes he closes his eyes and appears not to be listening.

Danny is a greyhound and a novel way of encouraging pupils at Oakhill primary school in Tamworth, Staffordshire, to read aloud. A "listening dog", he is part of a scheme that originated in the US called Reading Education Assistance Dogs (Read).

"It helps with their self-esteem in reading out loud because he is non-judgmental," says the dog's owner, Tony Nevett, who has a degree in animal-assisted therapy. "He doesn't judge them and he doesn't laugh at them. He's just a tool – the children don't realise they are reading, which they might not have the confidence to do in class." Some children even show Danny the pictures as they read.

Danny received five months of training to become a Read dog. Greyhounds are particularly well-suited because they do not bark and their short coat is less likely to trigger allergies.

Nevett hopes that the scheme, piloted in Kent, will spread. "We've had some success stories, including a girl with Down's Syndrome who really took to the dog and improved her reading," he says. "When Danny goes to sleep I tell the children that he's dreaming about their story."

• Literacy
• Animals

Patrick Barkham

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Dogs who listen to children reading

Spiderman In Amazing Adventures

Part of the America Reads initiative, Spiderman In Amazing Adventures was developed to encourage literacy in boys. A selection of word puzzles featuring Spiderman and his enemies. they can be printed off individually or as a PDF book.

http://www2.ed.gov/inits/americareads/spidey/index.html 

Free Online Puzzle Generator

Puzzlemaker is a free puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more — using your own word lists. This is a useful tool as it can be used to help reinforce keywords for any subject.

http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/ 

Fish and Kids

Fish Kids is a project of the Marine Stewardship Council, designed to bring sustainable seafood sourcing to schools and restaurants.

The education pack is filled with curriculum-linked resources to help you teach Science and Geography at key stages 1 and 2. The pack also contains activities linked to schemes of work for English and Citizenship at KS2. As well as activity sheets the pack contains lesson plans.

The pack can be downloaded in one go or in sections. If you are not able to download or print the pack you can request for a printed copy to be sent to you.

Other resources available on the site include activity sheets, slideshows, assembly plan and discussion cards.

Click Here To Visit The Fish And Kids Website

Into The Book

"Explore eight reading strategies for K-4 students and teachers in this interactive and in-depth reading comprehension site:

Make meaningful connections to climb to the summit of the Mountain of Understanding

Summarize the thrilling life of a talkative pirate

Evaluate books to successfully explore a distant solar system

Infer the real news in letters from pen pals

And much more!

Students can watch online videos, play learning games and interactives, and share their creations with friends and family. Teachers can delve into rich information and teaching resources, lesson plans, video and audio clips, downloads, and more.

Eduweb collaborated with the State of Wisconsin's Educational Communications Board on the design and development of the entire site, and particularly on the playful learning games and interactives that give students valuable practice with each reading strategy."

Into The Book 

What I Did for My Summer Vacation - Montana Historical Society

"What Did You Do For Your Summer Vacation?

Hop a plane to see Grandma in Florida? Drive all the way to the Grand Canyon with your family? Chat online with your friends all over the world?

Travel back in time and across the Treasure State to experience a summer vacation before you could do any of those things. Going by train was the fastest way to get there, driving was a grueling adventure, and the telephone was high-tech.

You'll experience the past through artifacts from the Montana Historical Society's collections. We'll tell you about their past, but we won't tell you what to think about them — that's your story to tell us!"

What I Did for My Summer Vacation 

Times Spelling Bee

The Times Spelling Bee website is primarily aimed at children ages around 12 years old that are competing in the Times Spelling Bee competition, however the play and practise areas are open to anybody. There is also a mini bees section for children aged 5-11 years old.

A useful feature on this site is the downloadable mobile games section which will allow you to test your spelling on a handheld device. Although the application is only availebl on the iPhone at the moment, they are intending to make the application available on several different mobiles.

Royal Society For The Protection Of Birds Printable Resources

The RSPB online resources are linked to the four national curricula/guidelines and are targeted at five age groups: 5 - 7, 7 - 11, 11 - 14, 14 - 16 and 16+

All primary resources are cross referenced with the National Numeracy Strategy for England and the national maths curricula and organised into Geography, Literacy, Numeracy & Science categories.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ 

Free Printable Handwriting Paper

The handwriting lessons at free to print at DonnaYoung.org. There are several sets of printables ranging from tracing shapes for beginners through to themed notepaper.

http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/ 

Free Printable Graph & Grid Paper

The following page at Incompetech allows you to access various free PDF files of differently formatted graph & grid papers, which you can then print.

Designs include square, triangular, hexagonal, circular, polar, assymetric, music, notation, fretboard, numberline and penmanship.

http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/

National Maritime Museum Printable Resources

The National Martitime Museum in Greenwich have a selection of themed resources that cover a variety of subjects.

Time Pirates (KS2&3 History), Trim the cat (KS1-2 literacy, geography), Freedom (KS3 history), Your Ocean (KS3 geography, citizenship, science), Leisure, Travel & Tourism (KS4 & post-16), Leading Lives (A-level business studies), GCSE Astronomy and 'Coast Exposed' photography resource (post-16)

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/schools/resources/

BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site For Kids

Founded in 1999, BrainPOP creates animated, curriculum-based content that supports educators and engages students. Our award-winning online resources include BrainPOP, for grades 3 and up; BrainPOP Jr., for grades K-3; and BrainPOP Español. Our newest resource, BrainPOP Educators, features free tips, tools, and best practices by and for our teacher community.

This site is great, even if you're not based in the US! It covers a host of topics divided into the subjects Science, Social Studies, English, Maths, Arts & Music, Health and Technology. Each topic features a movie and related features which can include quiz, activities, experiment, Q&As and timeline. There are free movies available to watch, plus a free trial otherwise you will need to pay to subscribe. Family membership is currently $15 a month for all three sites (BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr and BrainPOP Espanol).

Click Here To Visit BrainPop

There is now a BrainPOP.co.uk too, subscription costs are £4.99 per month or £49 per year, plus VAT.

Click Here To Visit BrainPop.Co.UK