Soffie, thanks for forwarding this resource Our community can benefit from it. I'll forward it to the GAC members. Chi Jaama Joe >From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: [log in to unmask] >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Chicago Parent | Screen time=reading time >Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 12:59:25 -0500 > >I thought you might like to see this information from the Chicago Parent >Web site. > >I hope the article comes through - it will be of interest to parents of >elementary and middle school children. > >Soffie > > >_________________________________________________________________________ >Screen time=reading time > >HTTP://www.chicagoparent.com/main.asp?SectionID=10&subsectionID=30&articleID=529 >Jane Huth >Article : > > >I love to hold a book in my hand and turn the pages, and so do my children. >Yet, I spend a huge amount of time sitting in front of a computer screen >reading. My children spend their computer time playing, but I'd like to >change that. >Now that my children are reading, I've been pushing them toward Web sites >that offer books online. They aren't easy to find, as most are ads for >particular authors' works, but more and more children's books are appearing >on Web sites. >No, reading pages on a computer screen is not the same as curling up with a >good book. But reading is reading, and I'm all for encouraging reading as >much as possible. Plus, I want my kids to know the computer is more than a >toy. >Many Web sites offer online access to children's books. Some sites are >so-so; others are excellent. Some offer only excerpts and others feature >scanned versions of the actual books. A few charge as much as $40 per year, >a great idea if they had thousands of books (easier than driving to the >library), but a bit pricey for access to fewer than 100 books. >Here are five free Web sites my children and I like. Bookmark your kids' >favorites, and let them read to their heart's content. > >INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S DIGITAL LIBRARY, www.icdlbooks.org. >If you don't have time to make it to the library, or if your child reads >one of nine languages-including Chinese, Hebrew and Arabic-visit this site. >Sponsored by the University of Maryland, the International Children's >Digital Library is an online library of hundreds of published books for >children ages 3 to 13, all in their original languages. Some of the books >are old and out of copyright; others are published with permission from the >publisher and author. The books are grouped by age: 3 to 5, 7 to 9 and 11 >to 13. When I looked at the site it offered 727 books, but new titles are >added all the time. Each month the site features books in different age >groups. Recently my 8-year-old read Axle the Freeway Cat by Thacher Hurd, a >clever book about a cat who lives in a car. It would be nice if the books >were read aloud, but that's a small complaint about this useful, ad-free >site. > >BARTLEBY.COM, www.bartleby.com. >Kids in middle school and older will enjoy reading classic poetry and >fiction on this site. I found it a little strange to read a book such as >H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man on a computer screen, but kids used to >reading just about everything on the screen won't miss a thing. >Included is the Harvard Classics collection of essays, plays, biographies >and other works, such as Grimms' Fairy Tales and Aesop's Fables. The >Harvard Shelf of Fiction offers complete books by Jane Austen, Charles >Dickens, George Elliott, Guy de Maupassant, Tolstoy and many others. >The site also has an excellent collection of classic poetry, nonfiction and >reference books, including Fanny Farmer's famous 1918 cookbook and Emily >Post's 1922 classic, Etiquette. > >CLASSIC READER, www.classicreader.com. >While not strictly for children, this site includes the text of many >classic books for children by authors such as J. M. Barrie, Beatrix Potter, >Jules Verne and Lewis Carroll, among others. >A few of the books, including Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, are >illustrated; most are not. The site includes a few ads, but nothing I found >offensive. For older kids, there are also collections of Shakespeare, >poetry, drama and short stories. > >WIRED FOR BOOKS, www.wiredforbooks.org/kids.htm. >Beatrix Potter's books are all over the Web, since the cute illustrations >of Peter Rabbit and the author's words are now out of copyright and in the >public domain. This site from Ohio University offers downloads of Potter's >works in English, French, German and Japanese, and illustrated text in >English and Japanese. It also includes audio with modern illustrations of >the complete Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, selections of Grimms' >Fairy Tales and of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, and Charles Dickens' >A Christmas Carol. > >STARFALL, www.starfall.com. >My son used this well-designed site to read easy books when he was in first >grade. For nonreaders, the books are read out loud. Emerging readers can >read by themselves, but click on words they don't know to have them read >aloud. >The site, a public service from a greeting card publisher, has four levels >from preschool through second grade, although it is aimed primarily at >children in first grade. The easiest level teaches letter sounds, and the >hardest level, for advanced beginning readers, includes Chinese folktales >and Greek myths, as well as plays, comics and fiction. > >It's simple to navigate, and the books are easy to read and full of bright >graphics. There are lots of stories, so kids can return again and again to >the site without getting bored. >Jane Huth lives in the north suburbs with her husband, a second-grader, a >kindergartner and a baby. > >いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい >To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L >Web interface >at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html > >To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: >http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l >To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: >[log in to unmask] >いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい