eReading Worksheets

 

If you are a teacher of reading, English, or language arts, you have most likely stumbled across ereadingworksheets.com in your search for ready-to-use (or ready-to-adapt) materials. 

This website, created and updated by education enthusiast Donald Morton, offers a plethora of standards-based resources focusing on essential comprehension skills.

Online test item

In addition to hundreds of printable reading worksheets, Mr. Morton has updated his resource site to include interactive assignments! This includes online tests and digital games. Check out Genre Piranha, a literary genre review game, or Poetry Cat, a fun and uniqe approach to learning figurative language!

All resources on the site are searchable by grade level and skill, so finding the appropriate resource to meet your teaching needs is a breeze. Mr. Morton also includes answer key sheets, PDF and RTF options, as well as a preview of each resource. 

The resources on ereadingworksheets.com can be used as is, or altered and adapted to fit your students' learning needs. 

CommonLit Presents: CommonLit 360

 

Click to view the CommonLit 360 1.0
Planning and Pacing Module for educators

  

CommonLit 360 Curriculum (Edition 1.0) is a  comprehensive tool for secondary educators!

     

This thematic literacy program is FREE and offers: 

Comprehensive full-year units for grades 6 - 10 including: Ready-to-use materials; Reading, writing, discussion, vocabulary, and grammar; Scaffolded, supportive lessons; Supplemental texts Texts in   Spanish; Optional materials for differentiation! 

The CommonlLit 360 model includes digital instruction options, including:

• Digitally-assignable lessons through commonlit.org

• Tools for grading and giving feedback

• Integrations with Clever and Google Classroom

• New features updating throughout the 2021-2022 school year

 CommonlLit 360 also offers a package for schools and districts to purchase the entire program that includes benchmark assessments, professional development, and school-wide data reports. Click here to learn more!

    

Text Code Key

As many of you probably know, the concept of metacognitive active reading - more specifically annotations - is abuzz in the education world. In an earlier post, we shared an activity that included using text codes an annotations to monitor thinking while analyzing poetry, spoken word, and songs.

This upcoming school year we are introducing text codes up front. Students will be introduced to the concept of annotations (we are beginning with sixth graders) with a guided lesson that delivers instruction through modeling. We will first present the Text Code Key (a poster will hang in the room and each student will receive a copy of the key to which they can refer when they use the strategy independently).

Click to view. Make a copy to edit.

Next, students will be introduced to the Vale MS Article of the Week. Because we are approaching the curriculum thematically, the classes will be assigned one AoW on a topic related to the essential question(s) each week for the duration of the unit.

I like to use a projector and write on the white board (an older-style projector or any projection camera device will work), so for modeling the text coding strategy I will project a digital copy. All students will have copies of the article and we will preview the text and conduct a shared reading of the article. This allows students to hear how I make connections and ask questions about the text as I read and encourages them to do the same using their personal background knowledge.

During Reading:  Using the text codes from the key, I will draw the text code in the text and make a note to accompany that code in the margin (space is provided on the article handout). You can set a minimum of codes/annotations for students to make, but it's about quality not quantity.

Students volunteer to share their thinking, and this encourages an analytical conversation. The rest of the Article of the Week assignments (embedded responses) will be done independently for classwork or homework, or can be done in pairs. 

This strategy can work with any genre of text. It incorporates several strategies, including analyzing word choice, purpose, and perspective, as well and making inferences and drawing conclusions based on explicit, implicit, and background information.

As always, please feel free to Make a Copy in Google Doc, adapt, and share!

Germanna Conference: Presentation and Links

Links to individual templates can be found on our Blended Learning: Writing page. 

Welcome! Thanks to everyone who came out to the Germanna K-12 Literacy Conference in Spotsylvania, Virginia. 

Our presentation focuses on two main topics: 1) blended learning and 2) process writing (inspired by Kelly Gallagher's Write Like This and In the Best Interest of Students). We used many of Gallagher's strategies to implement writing instruction that relies on student choice, modeling/mentoring texts, and writing as a recursive process.  

Here, we present our products, processes, trials, and successes. These activities bridge reading, writing, research, and media literacy. Each lesson involves an independent activity that is followed by peer collaboration and a culminating project in which each student cooperatively completes a group product working together - yet virtually.   

We use the Google Apps for Education as the primary platform, but also implement activities that utilize GAFE as instructional tools for student learning.

Please feel free to view, copy, and adapt any materials on this page, as well as other links on the website.

Newsletter Example Template
Real-World Writing Presentation
Templates and Handouts

WordCounter
WordMover

Curriculet Signing Off

I got an email recently from the CEO of Curriculet with some sad news!

My new favorite online reading repository is signing off... for good. 

A little big of background on their company:

The reason they're shutting down? 

Well, guess I'll be revisiting Newsela and ActivelyLearn to see if they've updated to rival the efficiency and ease of Curriculet. 

Using Practice Items to Remediate

With expedited retakes now available to students in earlier grades, many of us middle school English/Language Arts teachers are improvising remediation strategies for those students preparing to retake.

A wonderful tool offered to Virginia teachers is the Virginia Department of Education's Practice Items, available on the VDOE website.

We have created remediation activities that incorporate the guided practice items into Google Slides.

Click to view Slide. Make a Copy to Edit.

The first passage Candace used is the 7th grade Reading nonfiction passage from the VDOE practice items. The Slides focus on close reading, summarizing, analyzing the question/prompt/item, and using the text to draw conclusions and make inferences. 

To make a copy that you can edit, adapt, and implement to meet the needs of your students, open the Slide in Google, click File, then click Make a Copy.

Interactive Review: IXL

We are absolutely loving the IXL 30 day free trial!

Click to sign up for your free trial!

The free trial gives teachers (or parents) and students full access to all of IXL's tools, including real-time progress and student scores by state standard or objective.

IXL is fully aligned to Virginia and other state standards.

IXL is fun and engaging. Students complete questions that reflect TEI (technology-enhanced items), such as multiple answers, open-ended questions, or manipulating answer choices; it's not the typical passage-reading and answering multiple choice questions.

IXL is more of an instructional tool than an assessment tool. It is definitely a mode of formative assessment. Students are able to track their progress, and if they get an item incorrect they get immediate feedback explaining why their answer was wrong and why another answer choice was correct.

Student view: Connotation interactive

This is great to project and do guided questions with a group of students. It also serves as a wonderful computer station for a blended classroom!

Give it a try, and let us know how you use IXL!