IRA Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3

CommonLit is an online reading program that offers stories and reading passages for 3rd-12th grades. You can create an account as well and as an educator it will allow you to choose certain lessons and track student progress. I found that feature to be cool. Creating an account is free too. Without an account, I was still able to explore 3rd Grade texts and read a passage they had. The passage also gave me the option to have it read out loud to me. I was able to access activities such as seeing notes (definitions and footnotes from text in the passage) and I was able to access activities (guiding, assessment, and discussion questions). I love any online resource that allows text to be read out loud to, so this is a great website in my opinion. I can see myself using this in my classroom and it'd be an excellent resource for parents as well. 

As I further explored this website, I found myself enjoying it even more. I read through more 3rd and 4th grade passages. The Guiding Questions feature is interactive. You can find the answers to the questions being asked and it'll help prepare students for Assessment and Discussion questions. 

I do feel like students need to be quite proficient with some of the passages I read. I know some of my struggling readers may not find this website useful. There aren't stories or passages designed for K-2nd Grade. Although I won't be able to use it as much as I'd like to in my classroom, I still really like this website. I would recommend it to the 4th and 5th grade teachers at my school and definitely teachers in upper grades. If I ever find myself teaching higher grade levels, I know this is something I'd like to revisit.