Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Access commonly taught themes for classic literature and discussion questions for that theme. Plus there are Text Sets perfect for social studies teachers! Choose a Lexile'''''® grade level for reading and download the text in PDF format or read online. Each text has a menu across the top offering Paired Texts, Related Media, a Teachers Guide, and a Parent Guide. Accompanying the text are critical thinking questions, an Assessment, and some have Guided Reading Mode. Choose the size of the font, listen to the Read Aloud (and pause it), translate to Spanish, and Highlight. Track student progress. You can search by Book, Genre, Grade Level, Literary Device, Text Set, Theme, and Spanish Texts. All of this for free! What else could one want? Well, you can also request a text, and they will negotiate with the copyright holders to have that text on their site. Take a look at their blog, too! You'll find lots of suggestions and thoughtful reflections for using nonfiction texts with your students.

At the start of the school year for 2023-2024, Newsela made some significant changes for their FREE or LITE version of the program! Now they offer four leveled news articles at five reading levels for teachers to choose from. The articles will be available for four weeks; Newsela Lite is free for any teacher to access four pre-selected news articles, select and lock reading levels for students, see alignment to state standards, schedule assignments and set due dates, access students' quiz scores, and respond to students' writing prompt submissions and annotations. Many of these features were on the "premium" account until the 2023-2024 school year.

Incase you're wondering - Newsela features current events stories tailor-made for classroom use. Click "Products" on the top menu and slide down to browse content in subject areas (social studies, science, etc.). Stories are student-friendly and can be accessed in different formats by reading level. Use Newsela to differentiate nonfiction reading. Newspaper writers rewrite a story four times for a total of five Lexile levels per story. All articles have embedded Common Core-aligned quizzes that conform to the reading levels for checking comprehension, customizable assignments, writing prompts, and annotations. An account is required to use Newsela, both for teachers and for students, but students sign up using a teacher or parent-provided code rather than an email address. Click the Resources tab at the top to find guides and short webinars. Teachers can create classes and assign reading-level specific articles to individual students or download printable PDF copies of the article in any of its reading-level versions. There is no outside advertising.

Join the Cat in the Hat, Sally, and friends on an adventure that teaches, reinforces, and enriches learning for young students. Easily navigate through Games, Printing, and Videos. Each area features different concepts: colors, shapes, numbers, letters, matching, easy art projects, videos, songs, and spatial reasoning. Be sure to check out the activities on the top menu; they change with each page you click. There are also seasonal/timely activities on the main page. A wide variety of games keep you coming back to find yet another adventure with the Cat in the Hat. The site features user friendly directions for any age.

Highlight and share specific information within web pages with this application. Rooh it works instantly for highlighting information on web pages while web surfing. Automatically clip, collect, bookmark, and share online content via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and more with just one click. Create highlights using several different methods. Download Rooh it by dragging and dropping the bookmarklet on your browser's tool bar then click the bookmarklet before highlighting information. You can also try entering rooh.it/ before the http of any webpage URL and your cursor turns into a highlighter. It is actually easiest to simply enter the site URL in the box on the main Rooh it page.

Discover the pioneer world of Laura Ingalls Wilder with this blog. Under "Live Like Laura" from the top menu find Activities, Crafts, Recipes, and Pioneer Living. Find blog posts and a few videos about the Cat's Cradle game, Gardening Activities, information about the Grasshopper Plague, Word Searches, Trivia Searches, and too much more to list here. This informative site is a must see for anyone who loves Laura Ingalls Wilder or teaches the books with all puzzles, activities, and images of people in clothing of the time and places in Laura's life.

Here's a chance to participate in a national (American) effort to encourage adults to read to children. NEA's Read Across America program wants every adult to read to a child as part of the celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday. Visit this site to see how you can help with a celebration in your local community. Click the Plan a Reading Event to find resources for Dr. Seuss.