Online tools for teaching reading is a wonderful technology that can help teachers and learners alike. There is no doubt that online tools for learning can make your life as a teacher easier. You may think that technology has now taken over the schools and universities in the form of computers and tablet computers, but there are some new forms of technology being introduced to this modern world as well.
Online Tools for Teaching Reading is a collection of free web-based activities designed to enhance reading skills. These online tools have been chosen from Verbal Workout’s extensive pool of downloadable resources that academic speech-language pathologists use with their students. The goal is to provide some of the technology available to help inspire and enhance teaching and learning in the classroom.
There is a long list of online tools that help in teaching reading to the kids. If you are interested in online tools for teaching reading and want to find the best online tools or apps for teaching online, then this is the best place to look for. You can get acquainted with about the three most important online tools for teaching reading or about top online tools for learning and reading
In the modern era, people are spending more time on the internet than ever before. While there is a lot of negative press about this new phenomenon, there are also some positive impacts. Some people who struggle with reading engagement find the online realm incredibly helpful. But how do you use the positive aspects of online in an educational context? The following article explores digital tools for reading and educations.
Online math tools
Theresa Wills, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of mathematics education in the School of Education at George Mason University, where she works with in-service mathematics specialists and preservice elementary and secondary teachers. Theresa has taught synchronous online classes and webinars since 2010 and researches teaching practices that are adaptable to the online environment. She is a former classroom teacher and math coach who still volunteers weekly in K-12 classrooms. She is the author of the forthcoming book Teaching Math at a Distance, Grades K-12: A Practical Guide to Rich Remote Instruction.
My go-to tools this year are grounded in collaboration, interaction, and student voice. They provide equitable opportunities for students’ access to the same kinds of mathematical reasoning, thinking, and discourse while learning remotely that they would if they were learning face to face. Here are three examples.
Google Slides
This quintessential, simple, and free tool gives teachers the security and flexibility to create interactive activities while releasing ownership to the students. By inviting students to the shared slide in edit mode, and practicing netiquette norms, students can type ideas into text boxes, paste images that express their opinions, manipulate game pieces, and insert screen shots of their work from third-party apps. The pedagogical magic is revealed when teachers and students can observe and modify each other’s responses, in real time.
This slide shows the work of four students in a small breakout room as they used models to describe a growing pattern.
Math Learning Center
This virtual manipulative website is a staple in mathematics classrooms where students interact with familiar manipulatives such as base 10 blocks. Teachers can customize the site by creating problems, saving templates, and sharing private links with students. The best part is that the tools encourage flexible thinking as students explore multiple ways to model their understanding.
Reading Rockets
‘Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that o ffers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.’
ReadWriteThink
ReadWriteThink is a great platform that provides a wide variety of educational materials covering different literacy areas including reading, writing, listening and speaking. You can use the integrated search functionality to filter resources based on criteria such as grade level, resource type, themes, learning objectives and many more.
Reading Rainbow
‘Reading Rainbow® first launched in 1983 as a children’s television series designed to encourage reading…Reading Rainbow, the #1 education service, now offers its fully reimagined library of books, videos, and games for the Web, iPad, and Kindle Fire. With the mission of bringing a passion for reading to Every Child, Everywhere, Reading Rainbow is available at home, in the classroom, and on the go.’
Reading Bear
Reading Bear is a great tool for helping kids learn to read. Reading Bear integrates both vocabulary practice (over 1200 vocabulary items) and phonetic awareness ( covering different phonetic principles and patterns of written English) into their lessons. All of these lessons are provided in the form of narrated presentations playable either as a video or as an interactive slide show.
Starfall
‘Starfall has been teaching children to read with phonics for well over a decade. Our systematic approach, in conjunction with audiovisual interactivity is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.’
Poetry Idea Engine
Learn the many ways to write poetry and create your own haiku, limerick, or free verse poem with the Poetry Idea Engine.
Bartleby
Bartleby is an online source of literature, reference and verse, providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge. The indices are by author, subject and title.
Orangoo
Avoid spelling errors by using this online spell check tool to create impeccable texts.
Books should be free
Here you can find thousands of free audio books that you can download in mp3, iPod and iTunes format for your portable audio player.
Children’s storybooks
Many wonderful free illustrated childrens’ books are available to read at Children’s Storybooks Online. Stories span age ranges from preschool, young children, teens, through young adults.
Kidblog
While reading blog posts aren’t considered a traditional method of reading, it’s one that’s becoming more and more popular for everyone, kids and adults alike. Allowing students to both read and write within the blogging medium not only gets them excited to learn but prepares them for a digital future. Many writers in your classroom may end up as professional bloggers or web content producers, and this classroom experience may be what steers them in that direction.
With Kidblog, a safe and simple blogging platform for the classroom, students can write their own blog posts, spend time reading their peers’ posts, and comment on them to start a discussion. This is a great tool for free reading and writing time; use these 50 creative blog prompts to spark your students’ creativity.
What makes it special: Unlike other blogging platforms, Kidblog is completely education-based. As such, it’s integrated with Google Drive and Google Apps for Education. It also comes integrated with Common Core standards, lessons and unit plans, and allows students to create their own personalized themes.
Whooo’s Reading
Whooo’s Reading inspires students to read and write every single day. Being able to earn Wisdom Coins and Badges, and “like” and comment on their peers’ responses in their Facebook-like newsfeed, motivates students to read more than ever before.
With a variety of comprehension question options, including the book review, question response or blog post, students are also excited to write. Not to mention, all of these writing options encourage students to use higher-level thinking. Other important writing features include:
- Teacher scoring
- Immediate and private teacher feedback
- The option to re-write their response for a higher score
- Speech-to-text input option
What makes it special: With this tool, teachers can track student progress, mastery of standards, reading comprehension and writing proficiency. They can also set reading and response goals to keep students on track with their independent reading.
PocketPhonics
This app, geared toward younger students who are just learning to read and write, does a great job of combining the two in an engaging way. Letter sounds are taught in small groups and include audio and physical cues for learning—students will hear the sounds and can also trace the letters with their finger or a stylus.
The app includes a spelling game and sends and weekly update emails for parents and teachers.
What makes it special: Independent research found that students learn nine times faster using PocketPhonics compared to a classroom lesson, as cited on their website.
Bookopolis
While this student-only reading website isn’t directly promoting, nor does it require, student writing, it still encourages it in one special way: students can write book reviews that are seen by their peers in the classroom and around the country. This review writing is what leads to more reading.
Education professionals will agree that reviews from students’ peers are the most influential. With Bookoplis, students have access to thousands of these reviews, in addition to the “Book Quest,” which takes them on a journey to discover their next favorite book.
What makes it special: With Bookopolis, where students are writing reviews that can be seen by students outside of their classroom, students are given an authentic audience to write for.
Gerty
This e-reader, iOS app is perfect for encouraging students to both read and write on their own time, as opposed to being assigned it. With Gerty, students are able to open ebooks in EPUB format and access a variety of unique features that encourage them to become better readers and writers.
Some of these features include:
- A built-in journal, for writing thoughts while reading
- A timeline for adding definitions they want to learn or look up
- One-tap Dropbox access
- In-book reading timers
- Sound effects
What makes it special: There are dozens of features that can make a significant impact in the classroom, but one that’s especially helpful for students is the daily reading and journaling reminder.
Reading Eggs
‘The program has been developed by a highly experienced team of educational teachers, writers and developers. The Reading Eggs program focuses on a core reading curriculum of phonics and sight words using skills and strategies essential for sustained reading success. It completely supports what children learn at school and will help to improve your child’s results at school…With interactive animations, fun games, great songs and lots of rewards, Reading Eggs is a great place to learn to read. Children are highly motivated to return again and again. At Reading Eggs, learning to read is enjoyable as well as very rewarding. Every lesson ends with a new book and a new critter to add to your growing collection.’
Free classic audiobooks
As the title says, here you can find classic stories and encourage your students to read them for free.
Free rice
For every correct answer you choose, 10 grains of rice are raised to help end world hunger through the World Food Programme. While your students play this vocabulary game, they learn while donating food to people in need.
Word search maker
Learn easier new words with word search maker. Make your own custom word search worksheets for your students. A variety of options is available including font size, font style, lowercase or uppercase letters, grid shape, word placement, and more.
Rhyme zone
RhymeZone is a language arts reference tool and comprehensive search engine for words. Includes the functions of a rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, and spelling check. Just type in a word to find a whole bunch of related words.
How to Teach Reading Online
Who expected for the schools to close just a few days ago or even a week ago? None of us, right? So we are in uncharted territory, but the good news is that flexibility is the hallmark of a good teacher and we are really going to be using that flexibility muscle in the weeks ahead. Hi, I’m Dr. Marnie Ginsberg of Reading Simplified and we have created a system that’s streamlined for teaching anyone how to read, whether a beginner or struggler. And this system is streamlined and efficient and also accelerates students’ reading achievement rapidly. So there’s no better time than zeroing in on a streamlined and highly efficient system than now because we have so much uncertainty.
Conclusion
The Internet is a powerful tool for education. A growing number of educators are using the Internet and other computer-based technologies for teaching reading. Educators can use tools on the Internet to meet students’ individual learning needs, save time, boost student participation in learning activities and enhance the overall reading instruction process.
Do you have students who need to improve their reading, who aren’t motivated to read more, or who aren’t meeting your reading goals? We’ve been there. There are some great tools that can help. These tools are designed to appeal to reluctant readers with engaging multimedia and text that is gamified.