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English Language Arts
Take your English Language Arts (ELA) instruction to the next level with these online resources. Learn more by exploring the links below.Resources for English Language Arts
Early Childhood Activities & Articles
25 Activities for Reading and Writing Fun - Engage in activities with your children to promote their reading and writing skills while having fun.
Early Literacy Resources | Reading Rockets - Recommended links for early literacy skills.
Get Ready to Read! - Designed to support educators, parents, and young children in the development of early literacy skills in the years before kindergarten.
Lalilo | Online Phonics program for Distance Learning - A free online K-2 literacy program with a strong focus on phonics and comprehension for kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade teachers and students.
NAEYC | Literacy - Developmentally appropriate approaches to literacy.
Sesame Street in Communities - Home- Hundreds of bilingual multi-media tools to help kids and families enrich and expand their knowledge during the early years of birth through six, a critical window for brain development. Our resources engage kids and adults in everyday moments and daily routines—from teaching early math and literacy concepts, to encouraging families to eat nutritious foods, to serious topics such as divorce and food insecurity.
Starfall Education: Kids Games, Movies, & Books K-3 - Specializing in reading, phonics & math - educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children K-3.
Elementary
BrainPop | Reading Skills - A group of educational websites with over 1,000 short animated movies for students in grades K-12, together with quizzes and related materials, covering the subjects of science, social studies, English, math, engineering and technology, health, and arts and music.
Diverse BookFinder - A go-to resource for librarians, educators, parents, book creators, and publishers who seek to create collections in which all children can see themselves -- and each other -- reflected in the picture books they read.
Into the Book: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies - A bilingual reading comprehension resource for elementary students and teachers focused on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing.
Oxford Owl for Home: help your child learn at home- An award-winning primary platform developed by Oxford University Press offering free online teaching, learning and assessment resources.
Space Rangers Toolkit - Includes 5 topics for exploration through fiction and nonfiction books, hands-on activities, new vocabulary, and fun writing prompts. Also includes recommendations for kid-friendly websites and apps, a space exploration timeline, a list of inventions from space, complete book and vocabulary lists, and more!
Starfall Education: Kids Games, Movies, & Books K-3 - Specializing in reading, phonics & math - educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children K-3.
Teacher Resources | American Literature - Free resources for teaching reading, writing, and critical thinking skills
Writing Activities for Kids - A collection of writing activities from Education.com.
Middle/Secondary School
AdLit | All About Adolescent Literacy - A rich, multimedia library of free, research-based resources to support your students in grades 6-12.
Folger Shakespeare Library: Offers a world of online resources for teachers -- from lesson plans to study guides to videos -- for teaching Shakespeare on the K-12 levels.
Literature Resources | PBS Learning Media.org - Explores the main themes of written language. Study main ideas and compare and contrast central characters of a story. Middle and high school poets can study figurative language, imagery, and symbolism using an interactive lesson on "Caged Bird" by Maya Angelou. Teachers can integrate literature and social studies with the "The Amazing Adventures of Equiano" interactive. Text structure, making inferences, and levels of text complexity are among the additional topics that are examined.
myShakespeare | Love to learn it. - Free media-rich, full-text online editions of Shakespeare's plays with interactive content, videos, contemporary translations, study tools, and more.
Shakespeare’s Plays Animated: The Animated Shakespeare brings to life famous Shakespeare plays.
Teacher Resources | American Literature - Free resources for teaching reading, writing, and critical thinking skills
Audio Books
1,000 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free - Download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your computer. Find authors such as Twain, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Orwell, Vonnegut, Nietzsche, Austen, Shakespeare, Asimov, HG Wells & more.
Footsteps2Brilliance - Free Library - Offers a number of bilingual (English/Spanish) “talking books” for early readers (and ELLs).
LibriVox | free public domain audiobooks
Light Up Your Brain | Free Audio Stories for Children
Literal App - Over 500 free books presented in an interactive format resembling text messages in a group chat.
Loyal Books | Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads
OverDrive - Borrow and read free ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines from your library using your phone or tablet.It’s easy to get started―all you need is a library card!
Project Gutenberg | Online Audio Book Catalog - Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution” of eBooks and audiobooks. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books.
UDL Tech Toolkit | Audio Books - A collection of online audio book resources to make learning accessible to all students.
Storyline Online - The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Daytime Emmy nominated, Storyline Online, features celebrated actors including Viola Davis, Kristen Bell, and Chris Pine reading books for young readers.
Storytime From Space - A project of the Global Space Education Foundation, that sends children’s books to the International Space Station. While in space, astronauts videotape themselves reading these books to the children of Earth.
Vooks - A streaming library of ad-free, kid-safe animated read-aloud storybooks to provide children with 20 minutes a day of read-aloud time and activities.
eBooks
800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices - Download 800 free eBooks to your Kindle, iPad/iPhone, computer, smartphone or ereader. Collection includes great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including works by Asimov, Jane Austen, Philip K. Dick, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf & James Joyce
International Children's Digital Library: ICDL - Provides free access to high-quality children's books from around the world in different languages, including Arabic, Afrikaans, Danish, English, Farsi and beyond.
Literal App - Text-to-speech capability; Literal makes reading books fun and engaging by putting it in a fun Chat-fiction format
Loyal Books | Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads
National Emergency Library: Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming - A collection of books supporting emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed.
OverDrive - Borrow and read free ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines from your library using your phone or tablet.It’s easy to get started―all you need is a library card!
Project Gutenberg | Online eBook Catalog - Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution” of eBooks and audiobooks. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books.
Graphic Organizers
CORGI - Digital graphic organizers for building higher-order thinking skills
Free Graphic Organizers for Teachers| Education Oasis
Graphic Organizers for Teachers Grades (K-12) | Teacher Vision
Printable Graphic Organizers | Teach-nology
Storyboard That: The World's Best Free Online Storyboard Creator - An online storyboard with a simple drag and drop interface and a large collection of custom artwork making it easy for students and teachers to create storyboards that bring visual learning to life.
Language Arts Websites & Resources
Adapted Literature and Lessons | Paul V. Sherlock Center on Disabilities - Nearly 500 classic, popular, and/or educational works of literature adapted for students with special needs. The works include digital books, movies, videos, music, and PowerPoint presentations that aim to help students with visual and other disabilities.
EDSITEment! Neh.gov - Lesson plans, teacher’s guides and student activities for Humanities education Grade K-12.
Google Lit Trips - The essence of the Google Lit Trips project is the use of Google Earth to create immersive 3D literary field trips where students virtually become traveling companions with characters in stories commonly taught in grades kindergarten through high school.
FCRR Student Center Activities - Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.
Language Arts Educational Videos - WatchKnowLearn organizes thousands of free educational video clips in all subjects for teachers, students, and parents. Select from a subcategory or choose from additional subject areas.
Newsela: Instructional Content Platform - An instructional content tool allowing teachers to find articles with appropriate reading levels, featuring questions and writing prompts, for their students.
Out-of-School Time - National Center for Families Learning offers a range of free resources to meet different literacy and education challenges.
PBS Learning Media | Language Arts - Browse standards-aligned ELA resources for students in all grades.
Reading Rockets | Launching Young Readers - Reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
Reading Rockets | Reading Adventure Packs for Families - a set of reading adventure packs to encourage hands-on fun and learning centered around paired fiction and nonfiction books.
ReadWorks.org - A resource for reading passages and lesson plans for K-12 teachers, including pre-made worksheets, quizzes, and other printable materials to enhance the lesson.
ReadWriteThink | Classroom Resources - Subject-specific curriculum sites managed in part by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Providing educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.
TeachingBooks | Author & Book Resources to Support Reading Education - An engaging collection of resources that brings books to life.
English Language Arts Lesson Plans & Activities - Share My Lesson offers free lesson plans, teacher resources and classroom activities created by educators.
UDL TechToolkit - Online literacy tools to make learning accessible to all students.Professional Resources & Intervention Websites
The Best Evidence Encyclopedia (BEE) - A website created by Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Center for Research and Reform (CRRE) providing easy-to-read, reviews of various types of K-12 education programs, including early childhood programs, elementary and secondary reading and math programs, and programs for struggling students and English-language learners.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading - A collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship.
Center on Instruction - Research-based resources on instruction, targeting students with difficulties learning mathematics, students needing intensive instruction, or special needs/diverse learners, including English language learners.
CommonLit | Free Reading Passages and Literacy Resources - A nonprofit education technology organization dedicated to ensuring that all students, especially students in Title I schools, graduate with the reading, writing, communication, and problem-solving skills they need to be successful in college and beyond.
For Educators | Florida Center for Reading Research- Educators can find resources to support your knowledge and practice. Use these resources to make evidence-informed decisions to improve reading outcomes for all learners.
Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade - Offers educators specific, evidence-based recommendations for teaching foundational reading skills to students in kindergarten through 3rd grade.
Intervention Central: Response to Intervention | RTI | RTI Resources - Provides teachers, schools and districts with free resources to help struggling learners and implement Response to Intervention.
National Center on Improving Literacy | Schools & Districts - Find evidence-based approaches and effective professional development to screen, identify, and teach students with literacy-related difficulties. Includes toolkits, videos, research briefs and infographics, Q&A with experts, and other resources around topics such as beginning reading, dyslexia, remote learning, interventions, legislation, and screening.
National Council of Teachers of English | Resources - Online resources, communities and groups to help provide professional support throughout the many stages of your teaching career.
Quill.org - Quill.org, a non-profit, provides free literacy activities that build reading comprehension, writing, and language skills for elementary, middle, and high school students.
TeachersFirst - Classroom Resources - Find thousands of educator-reviewed web resources, searchable by subject/grade or keyword. You can also find lesson plans/units, ready-to-go content you can share and special topic collections of web resources. Explore just-in-time collections organized into a classroom planning calendar.
Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science, 2020 | AFT - This report, written by Louisa C. Moats (a teacher, psychologist, researcher, and professor who has been at the forefront of science-based reading instruction for five decades), translates the latest reading research into accessible language so that those of us who are not steeped in the pedagogy of reading can apply it to our own teaching and learning.
Text Project - Strategies, tools, and texts to bring beginning readers and struggling readers to high levels of literacy.
The Best Evidence Encyclopedia (BEE) - A website created by Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Center for Research and Reform (CRRE) providing easy-to-read, reviews of various types of K-12 education programs, including early childhood programs, elementary and secondary reading and math programs, and programs for struggling students and English-language learners.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading - A collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship.
The International Dyslexia Association - An international organization that concerns itself with the complex issues of dyslexia.
UFLI Virtual Teaching Resource Hub - Designed to assist teachers as they explore new ways to teach foundational reading skills using technology. This site has tools for reading instruction and intervention with children in the elementary grades.
What Works Clearinghouse - Reviews existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education with a goal of providing educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions.

Return to Online Resources to view LRC-South's collection of free resources for use by educators and families. Please check back often as we are regularly updating the online resources we provide.