Hi there!

Would anyone have suggestions for a good writing and reading comprehension website for 4th grade and up?
I am looking for daily reading and writing assignments and feedback on it..

Thanks
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Have you tried Read Write Think (http://www.readwritethink.org/)?

There's the National Writing Project (http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/resources/write_read.csp)
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource_topic/teaching_reading

OER Commons probably has lots of resources as well (http://www.oercommons.org/). I'd suggest using the advanced search engine, if necessary.

If you google, Reading AND writing projects 4th grade - you'll get a lot of public/private school ones.

Thanks I will check these

Oh man! I typed up a list of strategies and then re-read your post. It seems you want a service to tutor and give personalized feedback. That sounds like a great business for a homeschooling mom.

I already made my little list, so, here it is-

The "writing with skill" book review suggests summarizing  a short story, then building an outline off of the summary, then building a story off of the outline.  This aligns with the common practice of having students illustrate stories in artwork, act out stories in skits, and summarize stories in book reports.

They based that off the book that said Benjamin Franklin wanted to learn how to write as well as the magazines he was reading, so he turned an article he read into poetry then wrote a short story based on the poem.  By the time he got to the short story he'd practically forgot the original article. 

I also enjoyed reading the sample chapters on amazon by Stephanie Harvey "strategies that work; teaching comprehension to enhance understanding".  There were some good ideas in the sample chapters, which you can download to kindle.

I don't know if diagramming sentences is still in fashion. 

Looks like this link has online games for any part of 4th grade LA skills you may want.   http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills-4th-langbuilders.htm 

Thanks La Texican. I basically need ideas on how to develop writing strategies. My DD9 can actually write well but not with prompts (which are not of her choice) and also takes a long time to figure and write. From the school point of view this technique is not so great as they have limited time to think on a topic and get to writing immediately. That is where i have been struggling.

I think practicing the three paragraph essay is a great idea.  Three quickn beginner topics are: my family.  Paragraph 1: my dad is nice.
Paragraph 2: my mom is nice. Paragraph 3: my siblings are nice. 

Give a few supporting sentences for the topic sentence in each paragraph.  Voila!   An essay.  An excercize on quickly expanding on an idea while presenting a uniform topic.

Snipped from someone's post in a homeschooling forum:

He wrote only non-fiction for this – he wrote, for example, about the food of Peru (drinks, entrees, and desserts), Newton's Three Laws (a really perfect choice for beginning 3 body paragraph essay writers), and pugs (history, health, and dressing them)

I'm going to use these ideas for future three paragraph essay topics in the near future.


Here is an online ruberic, a checklist of things you can look for to provide specific feedback on the paper about what they can do to improve the quality of their writing. Obviously dont criticize their paper and try to make them perfect all in one lesson. But if you know what direction you want to go because you understand the points that the ruberic makes then you can use each paper to point out another way that good writers write better (using the ruberic) and to point out where your kid applied a previous lesson to the current assignment. Success! Yay!!!
http://www.rcampus.com/rubricshowc.cfm?sp=yes&code=Z37232&

This is the "set them up for success" strategy, found mainly in disciplining books. You set the bar real low so they can be successful crossing it. Then you practice, practice, practice until they just remember the correct form. Then you raise the bar slowly. The slang term for this strategy is called "scaffolding".

[pedant]Isn't that jargon, not slang?[/pedant]

Great suggestions. When I get to the point where my daughter is tasked with these, I'm stealing your ideas. :-)

Thanks again. The rcampus site looks quite interesting.