Common Lit

CommonLit has over 2000 leveled reading passages for grades 3-12. You can download the passages as PDF or assign them directly to students. Browse by content type, grade level, lexile range, genre, theme and more.  To see the website click here.

 If you used an idea from this website then buy Mr H a gatorade :)  Thank you

Quill for English and ELL / ESL

 

From Common Sense Education, "Using Quill Diagnostic is a great place to begin, especially with the recent additions of leveled ELL assessments and pre-AP and AP English surveys. Once students' needs are determined, mix and match Quill Connect (sentence combining) with Quill Grammar (writing mechanics) to support daily warm-ups, whole-class instruction, small-group work, or independent practice. The activity packs in Quill Lessons (writing collaboratively) and Quill Proofreader (editing passages) can serve as mini-lessons for whole-class writing workshops, particularly for older and more proficient students ... The instant feedback on writing will appeal to some students.  Exercises are adaptive and can be retaken multiple times."   Their readers have given the site 4 out 5 stars on 77 reviews as of today.  Of note is that Quill is a non-profit organization.  To see the website click here.  

If you used an idea from this website then buy Mr H a gatorade :)  Thank you

Actively Learn

According to Actively Learn "Texts (and videos!) for ELA, Science, and Social Studies with scaffolds and higher-order questions.  Find what you teach and great texts & videos to pair with it. Or add anything you like."

According to Edsurge.com, "Actively Learn is an online tool with a library of thousands of texts and Common Core-aligned lessons that both teachers and students can interact with in real-time. Teachers assign pre-existing Actively Learn materials to students or upload their own content, then track student responses and activity using the company’s data tools. Students can interact with a text by digitally highlighting and annotating, responding to embedded questions and content, and leaving feedback and comments for peers."

 To see the website click here.

8 Ways to Help ELL Read and Write

Larry Ferlazzo writes about the conditions needed  to promote reading and writing for ELL students.  To see the article click here.

Read Works Student Library

Read Works is a great educational site.  Recently students have now been allowed to choose what they wanted to read as opposed to teachers assigning them.  To see the website click here.

Teaching Strategies for Literacy Skills

If you would like some student-centered teaching strategies to strengthen your students’ literacy skills then check out their website by clicking here.

Using Podcasts in Your Class

Do you want to get your students to read more?  The following article from The Atlantic is about the surprising success a teacher had using podcasts in her class room.  This might be something you may want to try.  To see the article click here. 

New York Times Science articles

The New York Times Science section online has many articles during the week.  To see this section click here.  Mrs Mikos wrote in her blog how she uses these articles in her science class and also has some links to some of her favourite  past articles.  To see her post click here.

Biology Reading Days

Mrs Mikos is a high school biology teacher who runs a blog.  She posts about once a month and has some very good ideas.  You might want to look at her website by clicking here.  On her January 18 2016  blog she posted two book lists and a Final Project (it is ongoing through out the year).  Here are the links to her Biology book list, Anatomy & Physiology book list and her final project.  

Non-Fiction Reading of Current Events

Would you like to have your students read articles on current events that are differentiated by reading level.  Each article has the same content but is differentiated at 5 different reading levels by Lexile.

To see the website click here.  You will have to register but the service is free.

Reading Comprehension with Science Passages

From their site, "ReadWorks provides research-based units, lessons, and authentic, leveled non-fiction and literary passages directly to educators online, for free, to be shared broadly."

Even though this website is for elementary school, the new grade 8 material would work in the high school Science and English classrooms.  Registration is free and there is a myriad of material for teachers.  There are 12 new grade 8 passages in science to teach reading comprehension.  Such passages as "Wetlands and Habitat Loss", "A Bird with Many Beaks" and "Everyday Compound or Poison", to name a few.  Included with these passages are some multiple choice questions and an extended response question.  Also included are solutions.

To go to ReadWorks click here. The new Grade 8 Science passages can be found here. The following video explains readworks but is a couple of years old when it was just K-6.

Intro to ReadWorks from ReadWorks on Vimeo.

Books for Victory

Seventy three years ago today.  The moral of this picture.....you be the judge but I think it is that it is never the wrong time to read.  The date according to this site.  However using a google image search I found an alternate date by clicking here.