Teachers who work with English as a Second Language learners will find ESL/ESOL/ELL/EFL reading/writing skill-building children's books, stories, activities, ideas, strategies to help PreK-3, 4-8, and 9-12 students learn to read.
Teacher Resources: Reading Instruction for ELLs
"Home Run Books and Reading Enjoyment"
Research article by Joanne Ujiie and Stephen Krashen on the importance of finding a "Home Run" book.
What's Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English?
What's Different About Teaching Reading to Students Learning English? by Dorothy Kaufmann provides teacher trainers with a research-based curriculum to guide the professional development of classroom and ESL teachers who teach reading in classes where some or all of the students are English language learners. The curriculum is available for purchase from the Center for Applied Linguistics store.
About.com: Recommended Children's Audio Books
A site that has links to six audio books as well as many links to popular children's books arranged by category, monthly themes and favorites.
About.com: The Best Sites for Free Audio Books
About.com offers a list of websites that have free audio books for download, as well as brief descriptions of each website and what is available.
AdLit.org: Literacy and Literature for High School Language Learners
An article from AdLit.org on multicultural considerations when choosing books for high school language learners.
AdLit.Org: Reading Motivation Articles
Reading motivation articles on our sister site about adolescent literacy, AdLit.org.
This resource offers comprehensive list of strategies for each phase of the comprehension lesson — before, during, and after reading.
Afro-America: Myths and Fables
Links to international folktales, as well as games and brainteasers.
Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish: Books About Latino Culture
The Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Adolescents at California State University, San Marcos has created a database of recommended books (in English) about Latino culture. The site has a sorting feature so users can sort by grade level, age, setting, or publisher.
Best Evidence Encyclopedia: ELLs
The English-language Learners section of the Best Evidence Encyclopedia summarizes the impact of a few online reading programs for English-language learners and other language minority students in the elementary grades.
Choice Literacy provides over 700 professionally-produced and edited video and print sources from and for literacy educators. Choice Literacy offers a subscription-based Web site, DVD Workshop Kits, seminars for literacy leaders, and a free weekly e-newsletter.
Determining Importance in Nonfiction Text in First Grade
This lesson plan offers ideas for helping students learn to identify the different between fiction and non-fiction text.
ESL Writing Wizard: Handwriting Practice
This site lets you create your own handouts of words that students can practice writing. The paper is lined and the word is outlined in small dot print. Good for ELL students developing initial literacy skills.
ESL/Bilingual Summer Reading List
This list from Framingham Public Schools in Massachusetts outlines the books that ESL/bilingual middle school students will read during their summer program in preparation for the next school year. The list also includes assignment and project ideas, a story map, and a rubric.
This lesson plan from The Kennedy Center's ArtsEdge program demonstrates how pictures are a visual means of communication in which we can retell the story using specific strategies. It also provides support to help ELLs grasp the elements of a story, including characters, setting, and plot.
Expository Text Structures and Signal Words
This document posted by U-46 School District in Elgin, Illinois provides an overview of five expository text structures, associated signal words, and related graphic organizers.
Florida Center for Reading Research
The Florida Center for Reading Research conducts basic research on reading, reading growth, reading assessment, and reading instruction; disseminates information about research-based practices related to literacy instruction and assessment for children in pre-school through 12th grade; and conducts applied research that will have an immediate impact on policy and practices related to literacy instruction in Florida.
This website offers a lot of different ways to experience a story: read-a-story, hear-a-story, fill-in-a-story, and finish-a-story are just some of the examples!
Keys to Comprehension: Strategies
Brief description of the strategies from "7 Keys to Comprehension" by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins.
Bebop Books are leveled texts that appeal to children's interests and provide support as they develop into readers. Bebop offers many bilingual editions as well.
Literacy Connections: Promoting Literacy and a Love of Reading
Storytelling tips for developing oral language. This site offers simple guidance on how to develop storytellers in your classroom.
Literacy Matters: How to Read a Textbook
Description of text structures and instructional activities. Includes links to many sites that provide support for instruction and tools for learning.
Media Spectrum: Reading Interest Survey
Survey about reading from The Journal for Library Media Specialists.
In 1997, Congress asked the Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health, in consultation with the Secretary of Education, to convene a national panel to assess the effectiveness of different approaches used to teach children to read.
National Summer Learning Association
The vision of the National Summer Learning Association is for every young person to experience enriching, memorable summers. To realize that vision, their mission is to ensure that children and youth in high-poverty communities have access to quality summer learning programs by engaging in research, developing policy, and delivering professional development.
The National Council of Teachers of English has posted a variety of literature lessons plans on their website for grades K-12.
Nellie Edge: Free Little Books & Poetry
Free downloadable little books. Titles include authentic material such as "Eensy Weensy Spider and Five Little Monkeys." There are also a few Spanish language books such as, "Yo Tengo un Gato."
Non-fiction Reading in the Primary Grades
This article by two educators discusses why nonfiction reading is important for young students, and ways to use nonfiction effectively in the primary classroom.
Non-fiction Text: Classroom Resources
This packet includes some activities that can be used with students to help them identify text features and structures.
Parts of a Textbook (Worksheet)
This worksheet offers students a basic review of the parts of a textbook. Students can use the worksheet to fill out information about textbooks in use in the classroom. (Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202)
Pearson Longman Publisher: Penguin Readers
Penguin readers are books categorized by the number of words used in the story, from 300 to 3,000.
Perfection Learning Article: High-Low Books
Perfection Learning article describing the research supporting the use of high interest/low readability books with struggling readers. Includes examples of their products.
Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS)
PALS is funded through Virginia Reads grants and the University of Virginia. The PALS website includes: 1) a section where teachers return their class scores to UVA and receive an immediate summary report, 2) a page where principals and district representatives can receive summaries of their schools' PALS scores, and 3) more than a hundred instructional suggestions and activities, based on PALS screening sections.
Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) : Early Literacy Activities
The Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening (PALS) Program is funded through Virginia Reads grants and the University of Virginia. This site provides early literacy activities, organized by skill type.
Reading A-Z offers thousands of printable teacher materials to teach guided reading, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, reading fluency, alphabet, and vocabulary. The teaching resources include professionally developed downloadable leveled books, lesson plans, worksheets, and reading assessments.
Reading Is Fundamental: Reading Motivation Articles
Articles covering a wide range of reading motivation topics from Reading Is Fundamental.
Reading Rockets Themed Booklists
Reading Rockets highlights a wide variety of themed booklists for kids from 0-9 years old, compiled by children's literature expert Maria Salvadore. Topics range from seasons and holidays to different feelings, activities, games, and animals.
Reading Rockets: Inviting Personal Narratives Into the Classroom
Article from Reading Rockets discussing the use of personal narrative in writing exercises.
Reading Rockets: Reading Motivation Articles
Articles about motivating younger readers on our sister site, Reading Rockets.
Reading Rockets: Teaching Plot Structure with Picture Books
Use picture books to teach young writers how to organize plot logically. This article includes examples of basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures.
Reading Rockets: Video Interviews with Children's Authors
Reading Rockets shares exclusive video interviews with more than sixty renowned children's book authors and illustrators such as Tomie dePaola, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, and Nikki Giovanni.
Research-based Methods of Reading Instruction for English Language Learners, Grades K-4
Authors: Sylvia Linan-Thompson and Sharon Vaughn. A practical and accessible guide to reading instruction for ELLs that is organized around these five key components.
Provides links to a variety of sources for high interest/low readability books.
Scholastic News English/Spanish
Scholastic News English/Español is a classroom magazine available by subscription with a flip-format that lets students read the same content in both English and Spanish. The magazine connects its topics to Latino cultures and offers family activities that can be sent home.
Scholastic, Inc.: Books Organized by Level
This grid can be used to browse Scholastic's Classroom Books' individual paperback titles organized by Guided Reading, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and Lexile Levels.
Sight words are words that can not always be sounded out, but beginning readers need to readily know. This page provides printable booklets featuring sight words, with versions in Spanish, French, and English.
The Starfall learn-to-read website is offered free as a public service. Primarily designed for first grade, the site is also useful for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and second grade, and Home Schooling.
Printable little pages and books for each letter of the alphabet. Includes a picture for each letter such as "A for Apple."
Teaching Adolescent English Learners Using Non-fiction Text
This article from the Journal of Education and Human Development highlights an instructional practice designed to give ELL students more access to content by using specific strategies with non-fiction text.
This website gives step-by-step instructions on how to provide a well organized lesson in which ELLs can build vocabulary and comprehension by retelling stories. It also offers several links to a variety of stories, as well as information about classroom discussions and assessments.
The Lexile Framework for Reading
A searchable database of books with corresponding Lexile level.
Time for Kids: Non-fiction Text Features
This activity gives students practice identifying fiction and non-fiction text features in a news story.
Voces del Corazón: Voices from the Heart
The National Writing Project (NWP) presents a Literacy Night event where students read, write, and reconnect with their families. This article provides some guidelines on how to prepare a creative and inviting environment for a positive reading experience.
West Ed: Reading Apprenticeship Framework
Website for the Reading Apprenticeship Framework that describes the elements of the framework and includes links to articles.
What's Special About Non-fiction?
This lesson plan from Scholastic offers ideas about ways to introduce students to nonfiction texts.
Search Colorín Colorado
I encourage people to check your website all the time!
~ Ceil W.
