Imagine a site that is completely dedicated to reading. Okay, okay. I guess that in and of itself isn’t unique. But Reading Rockets is. Yes, they provide free reading guides and great links to “Strategies to help kids who struggle” and “Techniques for teaching reading,” but those things aren’t even the best part of Reading Rockets.
My personal favorite thing is their “Meet the Author” videocast series. There are pa-lenty of schools that have no budget for author visits. Imagine that fab-u creative teacher who has his/her kids do an author study using these videos. (Of course there are tons of not-as-famous-but-equally-deserving-of-an-author-study authors, but let’s face it, the videos are cool.)
But I digress. No, actually, I don’t. Many of those not-as-famous-but-equally-deserving-of-an-author-study authors can do virtual visits, manifested in many ways: email exchanges, phone interviews and/or video chats with students are all great and easy way to connect students with authors.