ELA Parent Suggestions

• IXL (both math and English!)
• GoodReads
• Onondaga Public Library System
• Jordan-Elbridge High School Library webpage
• Jen Martin—apps to access books/download books
• Gutenberg.org
• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html
• Journaling apps

•  Vocabulary apps

• Reading apps

• Turn on the subtitles on movies & television; discuss what you missed previously.
• Read with your kids.
• Listen to a book while reading it.
• Establish “read only” time, and confiscate or disable your child’s electronics for that time.
• Download the Onondaga County Library app to borrow print books and digital books, and show them how to use it
• Keep books in the house.
• Let them see you reading!
• Talk about what you’re reading.
• Read the news vs. watching it.
• Preview texts before reading them: What do they seem to be about? What can you expect? Why?
• GoodReads: Join a social networking group of readers to share your interests and views on your favorite books.

• Plan what you’re going to write!
• Have students read what they’re writing out loud so they hear what their work sounds like. Does it say what they intended?
• To encourage writing: purchase inexpensive journals and encourage students to write for fun every day—stories, about their days, diary entries—whatever.
• Email your children and encourage them to write back, or encourage them to correspond with a grandparent/aunt/uncle, etc.
• Whenever possible, write a card to someone: thank you’s, sympathy, appreciation, etc. Just get them to write and do so formally.
• Encourage them to start a blog.
• When you text, text in complete sentences with proper punctuation, capitalization, and grammar.
• Use proper grammar when you speak and require your child to use it too.
• Have them be the Tooth Fairy or Santa’s elf and leave a note to a younger sibling.
• Talk about audience with your child—different occasions to be proper/formal vs. informal, and practice with them.
• Write letters to the editor and actually send them.
• Write product reviews on Amazon (or anywhere that accepts/encourages reviews). See how many people find your reviews helpful.
• Write book reviews.

• Create a “word wall” at home of vocabulary words your student is learning at school.
• Use the words in conversation.
• Make flash cards and quiz each other.
• Make a game out of spotting and talking about the vocabulary words in public or in print.
• Play something like Bananagrams or Scrabble and use the words, or make a crossword puzzle.
• Make a Kahoot and play together