The Web Catcher

From RIF (Reading is Fundamental) comes the Reading Planet, a place to explore, create and… read! Choose from the Activity Lab, Games Station, Book Zone or Express Yourself. Explore and have fun, or ‘join the club’ to be able to create your own ‘bookshelf’ and save your activities.
Favorites: The activity lab includes links to kids [...]

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Today we take you to a Flickr page of photo collections by photographer Leo Reynolds.  What’s unique about Leo’s photos is he takes close-ups of letters in all kinds of wonderful, whimsical locations, often more than 100 examples of each letter.  He invites visitors to use the letters (and many, many other photos) in any [...]

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GhostReader (formerly TextParrot) reads text aloud with high quality voices and optional word-by-word highlighting. From  ConvenienceWare, a part of AssistiveWare, which makes more fully featured accessibility software and utilities for people with disabilities

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VoiceThread is an awesome tool for creating and sharing annotated online slideshows that you have to experience for yourself. Make your own slideshows or browse what others have done.
You can interact by recording or typing comments directly in others’ slide shows and then listen or read what others have said, which creates a non-linear conversation [...]

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Assistive Media provides audio access to reading materials for anyone with a reading access barrier. Talented volunteers record magazine articles and other short works which are then available for download or in our podcast. There are hundreds of recordings of magazine articles, short stories, and selections from anthologies.

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Bookshare.org gives print disabled people in the United States legal access to over 34,500 books and 150 periodicals that are converted to Braille, large print or text to speech audio files.

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UpToTen Kids calls itself “the fun place to learn online.” With online cards, coloring, interactive games, puzzles and more, there truly are a lot of fun activities, with some opportunities to learn along the way. As the name implies, the site is designed for kids up to age ten, but will probably appeal [...]

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ARTFL Project: ROGET’S Thesaurus Search Form provides a free, public domain, searchable thesaurus. You can search by head word (entry) or any word.
HELP! In order to develop this thesaurus together with the Webster’s dictionary into an encyclopedic knowledge base for use in intelligent programs, volunteers are needed with all levels of expertise [...]

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Beautiful, animated ABC explorations where letters become animals and more. Includes sound effects, but I wish they’d also add the spoken names of the letters! (On the plus side, as is, it works in any language that uses the Roman alphabet).

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Starfall is one of the best sites for early reading and literacy, with online stories that offer audio support as needed, a fun, enticing interface, and supportive activities and printables. Multiple levels, with numerous stories and activities at each level.
Starfall was created by the family behind Blue Mountain Cards, one of the earliest online [...]

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