Reading Resources

Skill-building tools (English)

• Breaking News English: www.breakingnewsenglish.com 

Pre-reading activities (building background knowledge, building vocabulary), reading activities (cloze), and post-reading activities (discussion, extension, more vocabulary work)

• LearnEnglishKids (BBC): https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/read-and-write

Lots of readings and activities; for young learners, look at the alphabet games: https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/category/topics/alphabet

• Listen and read along: www.manythings.org/listen/

A variety of topics for short readings, mostly at intermediate level

• ESL Vocabulary lessons: https://www.esl-lab.com/vocabulary-lessons/

Vocabulary by topic, mostly intermediate level and higher

• Phonics worksheets: https://www.softschools.com/language_arts/phonics/

Sound-symbol correspondence; designed for young learners, though may be useful for others

• Sight word games: https://www.familylearning.org.uk/sight_word_games.html

Some nice material, including practice with basic words (Dolch list); British English

• Dictionary and MUCH more: https://www.wordnik.com

Multiple dictionary entries, authentic examples, related words, pronunciation, and more

Skill-building (any language)

• Look on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com) for specific languages, such as Spanish: https://www.pinterest.com/jojoesparza/spanish-reading-skills/ or Chinese: https://www.pinterest.com/srtacarmencita/everything-chinese/

• Textivate: https://www.textivate.com/ (pay to use this site)

Text reconstruction activity - add your own text  

Reading material

Controlled material (English)

• English for children - lots of short stories for young learners, but many, many ads make this not good for online use unless you're using a search tool like Duck Duck Go that eliminates most ads. https://www.rong-chang.com/easykids/

• Super Easy Reading for ESL/EFL Beginners - good readings, but a lot of ads unless you are using an ad blocker. Copy and paste for best classroom use: https://www.rong-chang.com/nnse 

• New York Times learning blog: https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/ - lesson plans

Controlled material (any language)

• Look on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com) for specific languages, such as Spanish: https://www.pinterest.com/jojoesparza/spanish-reading-skills/ or Chinese: https://www.pinterest.com/srtacarmencita/everything-chinese/

Authentic material (English)

• • Sources of academic texts - full text, open source

    • DOAJ: www.doaj.org 

    • PLOS (Public Library of Science): www.plos.org

  • Literature

    • Project Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org  - free books and audiobooks

    • Alex Catalog of Electronic Texts: infomotions.com/alex/

  • Science forums

    • Science Forums: https://www.scienceforums.com/ 

Authentic material (any language)

• News sites: Try BBC in different countries, such as https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp (in Chinese), or local news sites

In English: www.bbc.com/

• A variety of newspapers are available at http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/, though most are in English and European languages

• Wikipedia in local languages - select the language from https://www.wikipedia.org/

Teacher tools (any language)

• Hot Potatoes – download at www.hotpot.uvic.ca

Create exercises to accompany readings; can be timed; use the exercises you create either online or offline

• The Complete Guide to Evaluating Online Sources - https://websitesetup.org/evaluating-online-resources/

Very useful guidelines for evaluating the authenticity and reliability of online information. The page is in English, but the content is useful for everyone.

Teacher tools (English)

• LexTutor to analyze texts: www.lextutor.ca/ (also available for French)

  • VocabProfile (what is the frequency of words in a text?): https://www.lextutor.ca/vp/comp/

  • Frequency Trainer (How good is your intuition about word frequency?): http://www.lextutor.ca/freq/train/

After you try each tool, write down when and how you might use it. What tasks would you give students?

You can download the Program Checklist and Planning Tool.doc file (in Files below) to your computer.

Last updated 3 April 2024 by D. Healey