Digital Text Resources
November, 2016
Choosing High Quality Texts
Preparing our students for the next level is our priority. We must help students build the skills necessary to unpack informational texts. A key to this is providing engaging texts that are meaningful and motivating. The more students already know, the more they will comprehend when they read, and the more they will be able to learn.
Reading widely across many subject areas is critical. The research is clear: students need to know at least a little bit about a lot of different topics in order to comprehend more complex texts. In fact, for ELA, it is more important for students to know something about many topics than it is for them to know a lot about a few topics.
We must remember the task of teaching informational reading skills does not just rest on the shoulders of ELA teachers.
ALL educators are teachers of reading.
NEWSELA
Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with current nonfiction text. Articles are updated daily with real-world news from major publications. Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student.
Newsela supports differentiation through ability level and interest. With its wide array of highly engaging categories, students are very likely to discover content that piques their curiosity. The free version of Newsela also gives teachers access to articles at varying Lexile levels. So teachers can take the same piece and present it to students at a 620 Lexile as well as an 1170.
WONDEROP...
Wonderopolis is a magical place where natural curiosity and imagination lead to exploration and discovery for learners of all ages. Each day, Wonderopolis poses an intriguing question and explores it in a variety of ways. Their approach both informs and encourages new questions, sparking new paths of wonder and discovery in family and classroom settings.
With hundreds of different “wonders” available, teachers can provide choice and have students select something they’d like to learn more about. Each “wonder” includes vocabulary (which is previewed), text (which explains the wonder in kid-friendly terms), and also a video.
GOOGLE NEWS ARCHIVE
Google News Archive is a searchable archive of newspapers from around the world, dating all the way back to the 1700s. You can easily search topics or specific time periods to provide students primary sources. Students can search a paper from two different times in history and then compare the events. Students have access to first-hand accounts to analyze and create their own perceptions of events during a particular time. Also, other countries may be examined during a the same time period such as World War I. Give students the ability to decipher biases and interpret and analyze history through differing perspectives.
FOLLETT eBooks
Each school in Sumner County has ebooks that have been loaded into the Destiny Discovery program. Please contact Rhonda Bruce for more details on how to access these eBooks.
UNITE FOR LITERACY
Unite for Literacy has a mission: to provide a world where all children have access to an abundance of books that celebrate their languages and cultures and cultivate a life-long love of reading. Unite for Literacy provides engaging digital picture books complete with audio narration options in a variety of languages. These books are available on the Unite for Literacy bookshelf, a website which makes the digital book available on any device - computer, tablet or smartphone. Search for books by categories or by titles.
GOOGLE LIT TRIPS
The Google Lit Trips files are open-ended resources designed to be used in a wide variety of ways so as to better suit the grade level and teaching style and
to be easily modified to individualize the student learning experience. Lit Trips are downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of GoogleEarth. The Google Lit Trips files are open-ended resources designed to be used in a wide variety of ways so as to better suit the grade level and teaching style and to be easily modified to individualize the student learning experience.
LIT2GO
Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom. Materials are also organized by grade level, using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level index. Teachers and students can also download each title’s full text as a PDF, to read along to the audio.
DIGITAL READ WORKS
Digital Read Works is an FREE online repository of passages appropriate for students K-12. The database is built upon the popular ReadWorks services aligned to grade level, Lexile, and Common Core standards. ReadWorks are accompanied by reading comprehension questions, vocabulary lists and discussion questions. The articles are easy to assign for 1:1 classrooms. Within Readworks teachers can track students’ progress on assignments, see responses and grade students’ response. Here is a video on Digital Read Works.
Instructional Technology Coordinators
We are here to support you in the use of Instructional Technology.
Kathy Pryor - Title I Schools
Ben Bruce - Elementary & Middle Schools
Rhonda Bruce - Elementary & High Schools
Website: www.sumnerschools.org
Location: 695 East Main Street, Gallatin, TN
Phone: 615-451-5200
Twitter: @techscs