FREE Literacy Tools - Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking

This is the second in a series of posts about my favorite FREE online literacy tools.  You can see the first post here.

FREE Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking Sites

commonlit.org

From site: "Commonlit.org is a website that desires to have great texts and great questions for students aligned to common core standards."  All texts are premade with 3 types of questions:  Guided Reading (not graded and have to be answered for the remainder of text to be revealed), Assessment (graded), and Discussion.  The data generated for students is amazing for a free site.

Grade Levels:

Grades 5 through 12

Type of Texts:

Mostly literary texts, but there are many nonfiction pieces that would be applicable to social studies curriculum (and a few science).  The search feature is amazing, allowing you to search several criteria at once: genre, grade level, theme, literary device, common core standard.  There is also a search feature for entering a novel you are studying and getting recommended texts related to that novel. Teachers can choose and assign texts to classes.

Annotation Features: 

Students can highlight while reading, but can not make notes.  Teachers could assign students to highlight text evidence as part of the assignment.

Differentiation:

Putting students in different classes allows differentiation of text assignments.  Students can adjust the font size to their preference, texts can be translated to Spanish, there is dictionary access embedded on the site, and CommonLit has an embedded text to speech feature.

Teacher Use:

Great for a blended learning environment, or to have something students can do fairly independently while you meet with students in a larger group.  It is also perfect for sub plans that are as rigorous as possible when teachers have to be absent.  Teachers do not have the option to add their own questions and notes.  Students get join code in order to enter your class.

readtheory.org

Read Theory is by far the most effective program I have found in over 25 years of teaching for increasing critical thinking skills, giving students confidence and ownership, and helping students prepare for standardized reading tests. From the website:  "Read Theory's adaptive approach fosters improvement by automatically meeting learners at their own, individual ability levels." Read theory is programmed to give students more difficult texts when they score 90-100 on quizzes, keep the text level the same when they score 70-89, and lower the text level when they score below 70.  Students and teachers can see data immediately. AND IT IS FREE

Grade Levels: 

Grades 3 through adult

Type of Texts:

Fiction and nonfiction texts. From the website, "The passages you'll see on ReadTheory are all hand crafted originals that have been written, refined, and tested by the members of our team. The ReadTheory team consists of a handful of professional writers and educators, many of whom have received advanced degrees, are published authors and award winning teachers." Texts are assigned by Readtheory based on pre-test and practice data from students; teachers can not assign texts.

Annotation Features:

There are no annotation features.

Differentiation:

Students can adjust font size and use an extension, SpeakIt for example, to have the text read aloud to them. Read Theory automatically differentiates and adjusts text levels for students based on individual performance.

Teacher Use:

Teachers can allow time for stories to be worked on in class or as homework. I require my students to pass 5 stories a week (70 or higher) for a grade.  They get 5 points (out of a possible 25) for each passing score each week.  We meet to discuss data weekly so that students are realizing what they need to work on and keep themselves motivated.  They love watching their scores rise.

readworks.org

Grade Levels:

From the website: "The largest, highest-quality library of award-winning nonfiction and literary articles, carefully curated to support reading comprehension." This site is amazing in what it provides for FREE.

Type of Texts:

Printable and digital fiction and nonfiction passages for grades K-12 with literary, science, and history categories.  There are questions for each text, and the program auto grades the multiple choice.  There are easy tools for teachers to use to grade short answer questions and leave feedback for the student.

Annotation Features:

Highlighting and digital note taking are available for students, as well as audio for each text.

Differentiation:

Articles can be assigned to whole classes or specific students.  Features for articles may also be assigned to whole class or specific students (audio, extra questions, vocabulary help, etc.) 

Teacher Use:

The wealth of texts makes it easy to find something related to topics of study for students to read.  Being able to assign different texts to students certainly makes it easy for teachers to differentiate to students needs.  Content area teachers can assign texts easily as well. Another great tool for the blended learning environment

Explore one or more of these amazing tools, and see how they can help you meet your students' literacy instruction needs.

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