Free Literacy Sites We Actually Use (and Love)

Looking for free, practical literacy tools that really work? In this episode, the hosts of Literacy Talks share their favorite go-to websites for everything from decodables and syntax support to articulation videos and classroom-ready texts. It’s an honest, unsponsored round-up of resources we use, trust, and recommend.

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Transcript

Narrator: 0:03

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere, brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons. Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education, and Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst: 0:48

Welcome to this episode of literacy talks. I'm Stacy Hurst, and I'm joined by Donell Pons and Lindsay Kemeny, where each week, we choose a topic related to the science of reading, and we discuss it. So today, we thought we would do something a little casual and hopefully very resourceful for our listeners. We are just going to talk about websites that are available to everyone, and how those websites, the resources they provide the audience they're good for. This is a part of the structure of our podcast, is that we're all in different spaces in the literacy landscape. So I think we'll, hopefully we'll share a lot of resources for you with you today that maybe some you have heard about, maybe some you haven't. So I think we'll just kind of dive right in. Lindsay Donell, anything to say overall about this topic before we No, it's fun. Hopefully it'll be helpful for everyone. So yeah, well, as I we started saying, oh, we'll each talk about two or three, maybe four, and then list. The list got really long, so hopefully we'll leave you with a good list. Donell, how about we start with you? What websites do you want to share?

Donell Pons: 2:09

Great. So I will. I'll start off with Cascade reader. I've talked about it many times before, and I use it with all of my students. It what it is, is it adapts the text, and instead of a horizontal, it's in a vertical but it also has indentations on the left margin. Those indentations tell students, or are markers for students, about the syntax of the sentence, and it's to help with comprehension, support comprehension. And so the lessons I highly recommend. I could tell you a lot about it, but then I think what the problem would be is, because it's pretty intuitive. You'd say, Oh, great, yeah, I can just pop in. I'll take a look at it. But I highly recommend the lessons that are provided on the website, and they did a really good job with these lessons. I do them with my student. We actually, because we're in a one on one setting, we'll sit with each other, and we went through the lessons together. It was actually really enjoyable and interesting, because we had conversation about our experience as we were doing it together. And so it'll take your student, you and your student through what it is that you're doing with Cascade reader, and then it will provide examples, so the student is given an opportunity to practice with some text and that I highly recommend. And the indentations on that left margin are going to indicate to the student the part of speech or syntax for those particular lines of a sentence, and that indicates to them and also draws their attention to the comprehension pieces. What are the relationships between these parts of the sentence and what it does? I think it does many things. And I think for my students who have difficulty with reading text anyway, it's an opportunity to slow down because many of them are reading too fast. That's one of the challenges that we have, is because you have this mistaken idea, because you were always so much slower than everybody else in the class, you just have to speed up and be faster, and you're not spending a lot of time paying attention to commas, to periods, and to that prosody of a sentence, that pacing of the sentence, the phrasing of a sentence, all those things that really give meaning to a sentence, and those are pretty much lost on my students a lot. What this does is gives us an opportunity to slow that all down, and now they're really paying attention, and it's chunking really well for a student, because we have to teach that principle of chunking oftentimes to our students, that we don't really speak word by word. We chunk things together that starts to take on real meaning by being in this vertical sort of context or setting. So that's one aspect, and then you're also your student. Can have it in their browser, so that when they're on their own with text, they can pop it into the browser and have it put into a vertical format. So they can use it as well, and they can use it for class. They can use it when they're doing some online work, if they have found it useful. And my students, I have found request it. So I do kind of a little bit between each I have text that's in cascade, text that's not in cascade, and my students prefer it, particularly if it's text that they were going to have some comprehension questions. Link. And I it's kind of might be dense. It might be a subject I'm not used to. Can I have that in cascade? The students will often say, Can we put that in cascade? Absolutely, let's put it in cascade. And so you'll find that it takes a little getting used to for your students. But if it's explained, and I say those lessons are really good, if you give them a good base or of understanding, it really is helpful. And then there are some ckla passages that are already provided in there, that are in that already framed up in cascade reader to kind of, I guess, get used to and show you. They also have some grade level passages. It looks like it goes down to second grade and up to eighth grade. And what's interesting is sometimes, for my readers who have had reading difficulty, it's interesting to show them. Let's look at that third grade passage and see the difference between the third grade passage and an eighth grade passage. What are some things that you're noticing about the sentences? And my students have a lot to say. There are a lot of things they've noticed. Oh, my goodness, the sentences are a lot shorter in that third grade passage. See how they combine the first two sentences. Oh, and some of the words that vocabulary that's that's a lot more challenging vocabulary in the eighth grade passage. You I really love having my students analyze the text and what might change in a text that is considered a higher level. So it just provides a lot of opportunities for your student to look at the text. Mind you, all of this is obviously to get to comprehension. So I said a lot about all the things that are going on. In the end, what I have found is that, because my students have slowed down, they know what they're looking for. They're looking at relationships in those sentences as we're stopping and going, boy, what? What was that? What was going on in that first you know, you do some of that sometimes with your students to get them to kind of tell you what's happening and they're on it. You know, a lot of times I've had to get some prompting. Oh, maybe go back and look at that first boy, once they get into this, it's right there, and it's oh no, it was right here. We did this, and then it went here. It did that. Did you notice that it said this? And they're a lot more engaged with the text, which for them, I know, is a new experience not to have to go back and look at something and have to be reminded. Okay, I have a couple questions for you. Donell, sorry, Stacy, okay, well, so first, this is, like, this is Julie van dykes project, right? And so I've heard her talk about it, and she's all about syntax. So for our listeners, they'll remember when we talked about, you know, that our Big Sky kind of wrap up. We were talking about what she was sharing about syntax. So Donell, what it's doing, right? You put the text in and it's breaking apart into meaningful phrases. So it's kind of, it's looking at the syntax, so it will kind of tell you, like the subject, right? And then it doesn't tell you that. So what it will do? But, I mean, it shows you, right? Yeah, system of indentation. So it's a system of indentation takes the text and aligns it so it's more in a vertical than horizontal, and on that vertical arrangement, it is indenting, and the indentations have meaning. They're meaningful. They give a clue to the reader about pay attention to this line of text for this reason, either subject verb, one of the many clauses that can provide additional information, all of that's provided in the lessons, which I say are really important, because you might be tempted to jump on thinking, Oh, I get this. I get it. You in debt. Couple lines, you in debt. I caution against doing that. Highly recommend the lesson for you and for your student. It's really the best way to go about it. And apologies to Julie Van Dyke. I don't know what I was thinking with my little memory lapse there is to her name. Because not only do I think this, this piece is phenomenal, but her presentations are that I've been able to see at conferences have also been phenomenal. And then she's had two issues in the perspective which I'm holding up that are on syntax of part one and two, which I highly recommend if you haven't looked at that, and that's going to be another one of my website recommendation, so nobody take it, because I'm going to say this one too. Anyway, great information. So what do the lessons look like when you said there's lessons? Are there little like videos? Because you said the teachers should do the lessons too. So are there videos of lessons, or what is it? It takes you through the text, and the text has exactly what you and your students should talk about. You can do it together, and then provides examples of what to do. So here's a piece of text. It's going to go into cascade reader, and then have your student pull the subject, pull the predicate or verb, and eventually you'll work your way up to a more complicated sentence. But it just starts with simple first, and then, do you think so? The ck, the provided ck, la passages start at fourth grade, but they have them graded on a grade level. I'm gonna check that. I believe it was first. I'm just gonna jump right on because I'm always on cascade reader.

Stacy Hurst: 9:38

And you know what? I have heard you talk about this over the years, Donell, and what you're saying totally tracks, because when you first mentioned it, I pulled up the website recently. We mentioned it again on our recap podcast, so I pulled it up again, and this time, it's a little more relevant to me, because I am tutoring in my world older kids. One's in 50.

Unknown: 10:00

Grade. And so I pulled it up again, and I I remember thinking, wow, this has evolved. And you're right, you can get it, take a quick look at it, and intuitively be like, Okay, I see the idea here, but I didn't take the time to do the training, and now I'm going to do that. Yeah, those lessons, and it's great to do it with your student. Like I said, it's kind of, especially if you're in a one on one situation, it's nice to walk through it together. My student, I had a good time doing it together. Yeah, cool. But this, I can see how this would be helpful. Like your your adult readers, Donell, because, you know, it's doing these indentations, which, at first you're kind of like, Wait, why? Why is this sentence now? Like, you know, look like that, but it's helping the students understand the meaning of the sentence, because it's kind of where, you know, your comprehension can break down if you don't understand, like Julie van dykes point is the syntax, right? So you kind of have, like, your subject and your verb are like one underneath each other. She doesn't use those she doesn't put those terms. So it's not like all, you know, but like they have an example cascade readers. On one line is a tool is right under it, right? Because that's kind of our subject. And then is a tool, and then it indents under that and says, designed indents to enhance comprehension, you know. So I can see how that's kind of helping them, you know, because some sentences get really complex. So by indenting, and then they probably learn, I imagine, you know, as you're going Donell kind of what those, what those different indentations mean, right? Well, yeah, as you take them through the lesson, you build right through, yeah, you're building on that, yeah. So it becomes you might think, like you said, visually, you're looking at this, you're thinking, oh my goodness, that's different. That's quite different to look at. But if you build it for your students, actually they get to where it's this is really interesting. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna say it for a couple of my students, what it did is they, they refocused. I guess that's a word I'm going to use to describe what it is I've seen with a couple of my students in particular, they've refocused when they're reading

Donell Pons: 12:05

what they're paying attention to. They also have slowed down, because that can be an issue oftentimes with students who have difficulty becoming readers that oftentimes those road signs that we talk about, the periods, the you know, the commas and such, they blow past them because they have this idea in their heads that I'm so slow. I've always been so slow. Everyone's just waiting for me to pick up my speed, and that becomes an issue of having to put on the brake a little bit and tell your student, we're not reading that fast. Nobody's needs to be read that fast. So I'm losing meaning if you're reading that fast, and then you do all the prosody exercises and whatnot. But I find this really lends itself to the student slowing down, because they are getting more meaning out of it, because they're realizing what's going on in the sentence and the importance of those phrases, how they relate to each other. And I have found that they just self monitor. They after spending some time with it, they themselves slow down. I don't have to keep mentioning and I'll pause. We'll do a pause, and I'll say, Boy, that was really interesting. What happened with that? Did that come and my students are right on it? Boom, with the answer, well, yeah, that was here, and that was because of this. And that's pretty unusual for them to be that responsive without any prompting. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. And then you said they can add an extension to like their browser browser, and what does that look like? So when they go on any website like, they can have it go into Cain like. So they go to check the news, and they could have the news articles go into the cascade reader. Yes, it's just one of those browsers. You can put up. It has an icon, and they can use it themselves, and there's plenty of text online that lends itself to being placed into a situation like that. Yeah, wow. That sounds really great. I can't wait to check it out even more.

Lindsay Kemeny: 13:54

Okay. Lindsay, what would you like to share first? The first thing that I will share is the you fly website, and this is like, even if you don't use because they have a phonics program, even if you don't use their phonics program, this can still be valuable tool. Of course, you've always got to consider the scope and sequence. But so if you just go to UF literacy.org, and then there's a little button there called toolbox, and you can click the toolbox, and there's all different kinds of things that I can use in my classroom. So you can kind of see on this well, if you scroll down after you click on toolbox and scroll down, you can get this general overview of their phonics scope and sequence. And then you can go in. So for example, my class right now, we're working all about digraphs. We're learning all about digraphs. And so even though, like my district, has a different program, we have. Adopted. So we're not using you fly right now, but I can still go in. I click on, oh, look, you fly has lessons. 42 to 43 are diagraphs, and I can click on that, and then they have decodable passages that are free. So I like those decodable passages. You just have to consider, like me, I have to consider that the scope and sequence is a little different. For example, I couldn't use like their ch one because we taught ch first, whereas I think their ch one might include th and sh, whereas, like, I hadn't taught those before, right? So there's the Decodable passages, there's the roll in reads, which I use regularly. So when I have a parent come and help with centers, I have them run like a little phonics game. So I'll have them do the roll in reads, and I can just print those off. So it's great. I don't have to be using their program. I can go and just do sh and it's like, all sh words, and it's perfect. And they have these little home practice sheets. And again, for me, like I can't, I'm not sending those home because they also have high frequency words on them, which are different. But I can print that little half sheet out, and then when I have, like, an inner a paraprofessional or someone coming in my room, I can say, you know, I can just cross out the high frequency words on it, but just say, Okay, do this little word chain and, do, you know, and have them spell these words. And then I give them a word list with this age and, you know, a Decodable and they have, it's like a little lesson kind of for them to do right away. So I think that's really nice. Then there's also, if you look over, they have other things. There's printable resources. So if you don't have, like, a little graphing deck where you can hold up a spelling for students to, you know, say the sounds, you can print those off. If you're running small group, or if you do intervention, you could. It's really nice to have different decks for each group, because different groups are working on different things, and then that kind of saves you time, like, as an interventionist or tutor to be, like, I don't have to, like, take out all the digraphs, because these kindergartners are only what working on. You know, they're single letters right now. Like, you could just have different decks so you can print it out. So I think that's really nice. They also have under digital resources. They have this. It's called their you fly foundations, game generator, and again, you can go in and like this is very custom. So you can go in and put the words you know that you want your students to review, like certain phonics skills, you can type them in, and then it's going to generate a game board. So I just did this this morning because I had it generate

Unknown: 17:53

a like a bingo game board that my parent can do tomorrow in class. She's going to do bingo instead of the roll and read. So it's, it's really nice. Now, the games aren't like, as cutesy as what you're gonna get off of, like TPT or something, but it doesn't matter. The kids don't care, and you can tailor it more to what you need. So sometimes we're using, like, other people's resources, but it might not follow our phonics scope very well, or what your kids particularly need. And so the nice thing about the game generator is you can actually put in what words you want on the boards, and then it will randomize them and give you, like six different ones or whatever. So anyway, yeah, I just think, I think it's a it's a great it's great help, and it's all free. So I love that I know. I love that I do use those games with my student, my kids, that I tutor, and I love that you can customize them, because like the roll and reads, I can actually do my own spiral review, right? Or I can, sometimes, if we're going to do roll and read before the story we're focusing on. I can put words from the story that follow the phonics pattern, and you can print out cards, like, there are a lot of really good things on there. And they also have, you know, I kind of told you where you first can get decodables. And if you haven't been on the website recently, they did, like, a whole new set of other free decodable, cool decodables. So there's like the one in the lesson, and then I'm kind of forgetting where the other one is housed. I think it's probably in the principal resources. They have a whole nother set of decodables, which is kind of nice, because you always need a range, right? Nice, yeah. And a couple years ago, I just downloaded them all into one file, and I used them with my student, my college students, they're really easy to use. And if you're not familiar with the U fly decodable passages, they also have a space on the page for students to draw illustrate the passage, which is a comprehension check too. So I really like that if there's time for.

Lindsay Kemeny: 20:00

It. Yeah, they're good. Just remember that if you are in the lower grades and you follow a very careful scope and sequence, and you choose a decodable from someone else's scope and sequence, it's not going to line up perfectly, even when, like, you know, they have like, Oh, this is how we're aligned to you fly or whatever, and they have this document even then it's not exactly aligned, because, like I said, they might have, you know, CH might also have th and sh, and maybe your first thing is CH. So you go to choose a CH, you know, passage, and it's still hard, or the high frequency words, so you just need to be prepared for that. And some students totally can handle that, and it's no problem. And other students need, you know, a lot more help to read them. So yeah, then you really do need to customize at that point for

Unknown: 20:51

sure.

Narrator: 20:52

Interested in diving deeper into today's episode and exploring more literacy topics, join us in the science of reading collective, where we host the literacy talks podcast chat. It's the perfect place to share insights, ask questions and keep the conversation going. But that's just the beginning. When you join the science of reading collective, you're stepping into a vibrant, dynamic community explicitly designed for literacy champions like you access decodable texts, sound wall resources and professional learning in our AI enhanced community all brought to you absolutely free. Find us at collective dot reading horizons.com, join the science of reading collective today and be part of a movement that's eradicating illiteracy, that's collective dot reading horizons.com,

Stacy Hurst: 21:47

cool. Okay, the next, the one I have to share, the first one is Cox campus, and I found this a few years ago. It is for early childhood educators, k3 teachers, families, community health care professionals, district leaders like they keep adding to their resources. And so I think they keep adding to their audience as well. It is free. Somebody funds that. So everything on this website is free. There's some really good, self paced, video based courses, and they're all around structured literacy, and you can I think they go from birth to grade three. I also assign my students sometimes to go on and complete one of those courses. They have a lot of printable, downloadable resources. Also, of course, free lesson templates, assessment guides, implementation guides. They have a lot of things, lot of professional learning communities, webinars. They have Q and A that you can ask, and they have coaching support as well. They have Spanish content, and then they're also accredited by Ida. And so that is, you know that you're getting quality stuff. It is really good for that early literacy and structured literacy space. And again, it has a really good resources. There are all kinds of I'm trying to think, early on, I used when you talk about assessment guides, they'll say, you know, like, give a screener, what happens if your student is low on this, then get test this, diagnose this, teach this. Their phonics course is really good, too. I don't know, have you guys been on there? I haven't let Well, I've been on there, but I haven't taken any of their courses, so I've kind of explored the website, and I'm always really impressed with everything Cox campus does like so I feel always confident like recommending their courses, but I haven't actually taken any of their courses. They're all free, right? So yeah, they're really great. I actually went through them myself because I wanted to see what they were like before I assigned them to my students. For those of you who are teaching in higher ed or just want to learn about structured literacy, it's a great place to do that, because they do have every possible topic, vocabulary comprehension and great videos to go along with the learning. The modules I'll call them are structured really well too. So just lots of great resources. Okay, Donell, you're up

Donell Pons: 24:30

great. Just the International Dyslexia Association website, I think it's an unsung hero. Been around a really long time. Some great resources. If you have a membership, you get access to more publications than just perspectives. It's one I mentioned before in cascade reader, but you'll have an online version of perspectives available to you and back issues. And there are some other publications that you also gain access to, reading and writing is another one. So that's in itself, really great, but then you also have a. A drop down tabs so that has dyslexia at a glance, and really good information about that. If you don't know what it is, do I have dyslexia? You have a screener definition of dyslexia, which we know is very important and is involved in state, many of our states and in their legislative directives about dyslexia, that definition is what they have. That definition is going to be getting a revamp, kind of an upgrade here at the end of the month, in a conference in October. And so it's very important a lot of people are waiting for that. It also talks about dyslexia around the world, if you don't speak English, what does it look like? And then the fact sheets, which, again, are another piece. I don't think people understand how good that is on the fact sheets, it covers a number of topics on reading and around reading, and you can rely on the sources for those. They also have some great infographics. And then, of course, there's the whole structured literacy campaign that they've put together. So there are a lot of pieces that go with that. There's a way to find professionals. Maybe wherever you live, if you don't have somebody, you need somebody who understands dyslexia, you need to be connected. They also have that beyond the membership. Like I said, it provides access to some publications. And then there's also conferences, and those are fantastic. They have resources for youth webinars, I tell you, it's pretty comprehensive. And then there's a bookstore where they also have publications. And I've purchased many of those over the years, and I have not been disappointed in how good they are. So lot of resources. I was actually just on the website yesterday, last night looking at their phonemic awareness Fact Sheet. It was excellent. So clear. And you know, we have all this, you know, you know, all these different voices, you know, sharing their thoughts on phonemic awareness. And I just thought they did such a nice job of kind of explaining and summarizing everything, and then this whole list of amazing, really good citations, you know, for everything at the end. So if you're wanting to do a deep dive on any you know topic. I think those fact sheets can be really helpful.

Stacy Hurst: 27:06

Yeah, that's a great reminder. I have been on that website often, too. And of course, when we did our season on structured literacy and we centered around the info map that's also on the website, and I know it's under construction, but they do have some things available. If you click on a certain aspect of structured literacy, it'll have some videos and resources related to that. I think the concept is fantastic, and I can't wait till it's more fully developed. It's really good resource.

Unknown: 27:37

Okay, Lindsay, okay, so this is one that I just became aware of this summer. I went just to my own school districts conference that they have every summer, and I just like I found this little gem of a class. You know, there weren't many of us in this class, and it was just an SLP, a speech language pathologist in our school district. And so this is going to be great for any listeners out there who have students who struggle with articulation. So it's called the website is called peachy speechy.com

Lindsay Kemeny: 28:13

and she has these, like, it's these free articulation videos. So even if you just Google peachy Speechy, and that's like with the IE peachy Speechy articulation videos, and it should come right up, and you, you just scroll down, and she has all these really great videos of how she helps the students she's working with with certain sounds. So this might not be like this. Probably wouldn't be something you would do whole group, but just for particular students who are struggling with articulation. So I have a student who I've noticed

Unknown: 28:51

struggles to say the s sounds, and he kept putting his tongue between his teeth. And I, you know, I he's not in speech yet, so there's something that I'm like, Ooh, I might have to refer him, right? But so because I've been trying to practice and as a teacher, I'm not a speech language pathologist, so I don't always have the language you know what to do. So I just pulled up her little S video, and then I had him do it, and now he can totally say the s sound, no, I'm just kidding. It

Lindsay Kemeny: 29:26

wasn't like a miracle cure. He still struggled, but I'm like, but now I had, you know, I kind of, I showed him that, and we had some language, you know, common language to use. And I like how she described it, and she has them practice, like, on the video, she has some practice, and it's just gonna help me. And now I have to do, like, run little interventions for him, and then we're gonna see if we can qualify for speech. But so anyway, you know, we don't always know. You know, a lot of times I do go to my speech person at school and just say, Okay, how do you how do you tell.

Stacy Hurst: 30:00

Them to do this. But this was nice because it was a little video. She's really darling, and I could just put it on for the student during, you know, our small group time. I could pull him aside and have him do it. So, yeah, so hopefully that is helpful to some of you out there. Yeah, I am so glad I chose this topic, because you guys both are getting really great resources. That one is very timely for me, Lindsay, because my pre service teachers, right now, I just barely gave them the assignment that they have to create a video, and they're producing every phoneme, right? So that's going to be a really good resource for them. I didn't know that existed. There are other ones that I've added, in fact, one from Cox campus, but that sounds like it'll be really great, and you're right about the language, even with my pre service teachers, when I'm introducing the concept, I literally have I only use a few different sounds, and I have it scripted because of how we talk about the placement and manner of articulation. So yeah, that's a great reason. And she has a lot of other things on there. I mean, she like, sells all this stuff, and I haven't looked at any of that, but I just the videos are what's free and so, and that's what I've used there's also, I noticed she has language skills videos, and I haven't checked those out either to see what that is, but that could potentially be something helpful too. Yeah, that's really great, I think. And Donell, when you were sharing about cascade reader, I know we're focusing on print, but I couldn't help but think about the connection it would make to language, oral language, spoken language, too, just being able to break up sentences in that way.

Lindsay Kemeny: 31:39

Okay, teachers, if you're like me, you want things that actually help in the classroom, right? This is one of those things. Reading Horizons Discovery is offering teachers free access for the whole year. It gives you simple, structured literacy tools. Saves you time, and you don't even have to set up student accounts. Head over to reading horizons.com/free

Unknown: 31:59

and grab your license, you're going to be so glad you did

Stacy Hurst: 32:03

okay. The next one I am going to share is the aim Institute. And they have, they have a lot of free resources, but they do have some things that cost money, and I think that they have a program called pathways that you can sign up for all, like you can become certified essentially in science of reading topics. The audience is k 12 teachers, literacy coaches, administrators, dyslexia specialists. It's a broad audience, higher ed and pre service teachers. They just barely added a feature where you can go and take an assessment on your teacher knowledge. And it's not just gathering information about how much you may or may not know about the science of reading, but and structured literacy, but then they will create a pathway, a personalized pathway for you and where your professional development, so that you can be well rounded in the in the science. I thought it was a really cool resource. They do have even things on writing that we don't see very often. They have courses on that. They do have free library of webinars, blogs, case studies, teachable moments. I like that too. And then they have steps to literacy modules. They have lots of printable resources as well. Even I had found one the other day randomly for coaching supports. So if you're somebody who's in a literacy coach position, they had checklists and things to look for in walkthroughs and stuff like that. I believe that's what I saw. It's also Ida aligned, and Wilson is one of their partners. So their training, though, especially the stuff you pay for, is really high quality. And I did take, I did, I think it was they were doing a special, or it was a free course, or highly discounted. I took the Linnea area course on orthographic mapping, well worth it. I took so many notes, and it really refined my knowledge of that whole concept. I also got a free, I think it was free, some embedded mnemonic cards with the alphabet designed with the input from Lindsay area as well. So I am just a big fan of that website, and I know they do a lot of advocacy too, and they've really made a big difference in this space. So it's a really good example of bridging research and practice. I think, okay, Donell, I think we're back to you.

Donell Pons: 34:45

Maybe I'll combine a few this. This is more text. I'm maybe shifting gears and going to text. So if you're like me, you probably have a need for a lot of different kind of text, and it's nice if you don't have to pay a fortune for. It's nice that there's a variety of it. So all of those good things. One of the resources I've used over the years a lot and recommended it to students, is the Gutenberg Project. And I don't know how many folks are familiar with it, so it's gutenberg.org and it's called Project Gutenberg, or Gutenberg Project. Many people refer to it either way. It began in 1971 which I hadn't realized it had gone back that far with an individual named Michael Hart, who is no longer around, but it was his vision. And essentially what it was is to put as much material of a as it would be available in the hands of people for free, in the form of e reading or online reading. And apparently he's considered one of the fathers of the e reader, which is interesting, and that was the plan. And so at the time, and I didn't realize this, but the copyright to written material has changed a few times, and so sometimes it was less generous. And so he was able to put more, get more material, and copy and put it out there. And then, then they would have a court, some sort of court issue, and then they would extend the time period so then he'd lose the ability to get some of that text he thought he was going to get his hands on. But at any rate, it's a large library, and I highly recommend all the classics are available. If you go to the website, it just is very easy to search. There's about 75,000 free ebooks that are available, I tell you many really good texts. So I've even been able to interest my students by talking about what's interesting to you, what's your subject area? And we could even search by subject area. And we get our hands on some texts. Maybe they haven't thought of it's Halloween. So let's look at some texts that might be Halloween related. Do we have some that are scary stories to be told, and you can find a bunch of them. So I highly recommend, whenever somebody says, Oh, I don't know, I you know, that is that something I have to pay money for? I said, let's check this out and see if it's available. It's a really nice resource. What I would add to that is, if you have a library card to a public library, you have access to something called overdrive, and overdrive has a relationship with all public libraries. I've used it for years, and you can request an E or audio book of something, so it can also be something read to you. And if it's not available, you can get on a hold and it'll be sent to you because you have so many copies that they're allowed as a library. So if it's popular, you might have to wait in line a while. If it's not popular, you can probably get it today, and then you listen to it for a period of time, and then you just return it. It's just like anything else, but it's all done online, and I highly recommend that too, even for teachers that might have a student in their classroom who would prefer having an audio version of something as well, and maybe they don't have resources or access check off that library card, because that can be a really great one, and then another one that I used a ton when my children were young, but it's another one of these online free resources to get access to story. Is something called Story Nori and my kids loved it. Boy. Has it been around a while, but it has gotten even better, where they have a weekly serialized story, so you can wait for the installment. And if anybody really enjoyed, and I'm going to date myself profusely, but the olden days when you would listen to the radio, and they actually told stories on the radio in the evenings, it was really fun. My mom had a station. We'd tune it in. It reminds me a lot of that, because it's really good readers theater. They have sounds in the back, and people have different voices, and it really brings the stories to life, but they're all audio, and so oftentimes at night, when my children were trying to fall asleep, weren't able to fall asleep. We'd already done our 30 minutes of reading, and I would say, how about a story, Nori? And then listen, oh yeah, I'd love a story Nori, and listen to that while they fall asleep. I couldn't think of a better thing to do. So there's three, three things, right there, ways to gain access to story, because I think that's really important, or ways to gain access to text as well that are free, that I think are important, nice. I have a question on the project. Gutenberg, so what does it look like? Do you you download them, basically, you download the books and see all the text, and can it read to you or no? Yeah. So they yes audio. We use it for audio, and it depends on the text. It'll tell you whether the text has an audio version available or not. And some do, some do not, as I have found. And you can get original texts of things, so like the original Peter Pan. So a lot of these are things maybe you haven't seen, because now you're looking at the 1985 or 90 version, but there was a 1934 or 40s version of something, and I highly recommend those earlier versions of things. So there's just a variety. It's a real variety. So I recommend jumping on and kind of searching around, because you'll find all kinds of things on there. Yeah, cool. Okay, awesome. It's fun. Yeah, that sounds really, really great. You're just reminding me, just the the experience of listening to somebody who's really into what they're reading, and that readers theater is a lost art, in my opinion. We went.

Stacy Hurst: 40:00

On a road trip once and listen to the shadow, which is well before any of our times, but it's so intriguing and interesting, I can't wait to check it out. Thanks for sharing that.

Unknown: 40:11

Lindsay, okay, um, so I'm gonna I'm like, Donell and I were like, in sync, and we didn't even realize so, because I'm going to share some things for texts as well. But these are more like print them out. And if you need free text in your classroom, print them out.

Lindsay Kemeny: 40:27

So one we probably are familiar with, read works. You know you can get all kinds of free passages there. What I do is, when I go to read works, you need an account, you just make an account. It's free, and then I click Explore content, and then it's the assigned scope and sequence. You actually don't have to assign the scope and sequence, but you click on that button, and then it gives you, you know, the default is like, a topical scope and sequence by month. So you can say September, drop down, and it's like, week one, there's a topic, week two, week three, week four. And so you click on one of those topic like one of those, let's say week one is plant life, and you click it, it drops down, and it gives you, you can choose grade level, I think, from K to eighth grade and and so you can, and you click on that, and it's going to give you like, six to eight passages on that topic, on that quote, unquote grade level, which they're not perfect, right? But you can kind of look at the Lexile levels and kind of see so it's great because it's all free. I use it all the time. I use it when I do that, fluency, protocol, partner, reading, paragraph shrinking. I use that in the in I'm first grade now, so I don't do that till like January or February. They do have decodables on there, but I want to give a warning about those, because I think it's a it's a bit of a stretch to call them decodables. I've never seen a very clear scope and sequence. So it's kind of like whatever that author felt was decodable is kind of in there. So, so those can be helpful if you want the student to have an easier text on plants or an easier text on you know, whatever it is you're studying, but just know if they if they really need a highly decodable, decodable, then those aren't going to be the best choice for some students. It will be fine, right? And I kind of like I was looking because what's new on their website is now that they say, oh, there's like, you can do a scope and sequence of our decodables with you fly, aligned with you flight and another one with fundations. But really, it's not like it hasn't been controlled. So it's like, oh yes, here's, here's a good one for you know, short Oh, but I click on it, and it's like, okay, if, if they haven't been taught all those high frequency words and those content words, then this is only, like, I actually figured it out, because I don't know, I had too much time last night. I guess I just, like, went down this rabbit hole. I'm like, it said on there that this was, like, 86%

Unknown: 43:14

decodable, okay, but there's no clear scope and sequence. So I looked and I said, when my student is doing short o or short i, this is what they know. So for my students, it would be 56% decodable. And I, like, figured that out, right? Versus the actual you fly, one would be

Lindsay Kemeny: 43:37

98% decodable. So, so you just want to take that into account. It doesn't mean like, oh my gosh, they're bad. I'm never going to use them, but I'm not going to use them for certain students right until they can do that read those high frequency words. So anyways, that's just like, my warning with those is they're not that can be a little confusing. And then another website great for free texts, again, I think the same, like more if they're ready for beyond decodables, kind of like read works is the text project, and that has a lot of free texts. And I'll tell you some of the ones I love. Like, I would say grades two to five, this is great. So they have FYI for kids, and I use those a lot with my son when I was providing intervention for him.

Unknown: 44:27

So those are great. They're kind of like little magazine articles on different topics. And they also had a set called talking points for kids. And I thought those would be really great if, especially if you wanted to pair them with some opinion writing, because they're kind of like these, you know, exciting topics, and they can read about this and decide how they feel about it, and then, you know that could be great to pair with your writing instruction. And they do on the text project. They have some that they call decodable. Decodable read. It's, again, I would just say caution with those, because when I looked at them, they were really, you know, there's that percentage would be really low, I think so it's if, if your kids can do that, great. If they need, actually need, really need, a strong, decodable then I would go with something else. But if they're ready to transition, then fine, yeah, and I am glad you mentioned that website that was on my list too. They also have a lot of good support vocabulary wise and comprehension. So I think, and I know their formula for decodability is different. It's Freddie Hebert,

Stacy Hurst: 45:36

and everything is free. I love that too. I found that website, I think, literally decades ago now, and have learned so much from it. Another one that I will just briefly mention, and then I'll say an honorable mention is reading universe. Everything on the reading universe is free, and it really is. There are videos, there are skill explainers. There are printables. The thing I think is very cool and unique about this website is that everything is kind of bite sized. So if you just have a few minutes go on there like you can get a quick explanation of something. But they have a course that is called para reading. It's a free course for paraprofessionals, and I don't think you see that anywhere, so it's pretty cool. That was one thing I would recommend on that website lots of I like their printables too. Their design is really nice on those good explainers. And then this the one I really wanted to highlight. And I think maybe this isn't fair, because it is a I have zero affiliation with it, but it's not they do have some free resources, but subscription is required to get all the things. But it's called the teachers table, and it's created by teachers, and it's actually classroom video. I noticed there is a video on their Molly nest. They are adding content daily, and I actually use it, I project it to show my students what classroom instruction looks like based on any topic. They have everything on there. I showed them a lesson with El cone and boxes. I, you know, using that, that website, but I've been impressed with what I've seen so far. I think it's very new. And this is at the teacher's table.org I did pay for a subscription, and if I were really helpful, I'd tell you how much it was, but I don't remember. I think I just tried it maybe for a month or something, but I will probably renew it. And you can have, like, they have an account where you can have bins and shelves, or what they're called. You could put anything on there. You can save videos for to go, for you to refer to later.

Unknown: 47:55

Yeah, I just think it's pretty cool. It's newer. So again, and it is it you do need to pay to get to really get the full experience of it. I want to just go back on reading universe, because it's, it's funny, you mentioned that, and I actually have an open tab right now because I started watching a video on reading universe, and I did, I want to go back, but reading universe has a lot of teacher videos too. So, yeah, videos teachers in the classroom. And I'm just watching this one on conjunctions, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this teacher is just knocking it out of the park. She she's doing a really good job, really clear. They're doing, like, a sentence combining. And it's just so nice. Like, as teachers, like, if you can, you know, I just love, like, when I see a model or see someone else, just explain it so clearly, you know, for me, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I could do that more clearly. Okay, I appreciate that, and then it just helps me. So I just like, I'm like, it's the video is paused, because I was actually watching it right before we came to record, and I want to finish it. So I think I'm kind of excited for what else you know I can find on the reading universe, because it had been a while since I've been on there, and they keep putting all these things on, and it's like, free. Everything is free. So yeah, yeah, it's really great. And I love that you can see in many of these websites, actual classroom instruction. And that is like it like you say, Lindsay, I always recommend it as a literacy coach to go observe somebody else teaching you always refine your knowledge. And at a minimum, you can walk away saying, Oh, hey, I think I do a pretty decent job at this, you know, or or I like that wording, or this resources I'm going to add it. It's going to make my instruction that much better. So I love the teacher. Okay, the teacher next door to me, so I will hear her like, when my class is like, at their specials, and it's like, prep, and I hear her teaching in there. And I'll just like, so many times I'm like, oh, like, I wish. I wish she taught that lesson before I did, because I love how she just explained that ever and so, you know, even just that, it's just, I don't know. I just think we can learn like teachers. We can learn so much from each other as well. I just, I love, like, listening to her.

Stacy Hurst: 50:16

I get, I totally get that. That's one of my favorite things about being in schools now I do get to just pop into classrooms and observe, and it's really a lot of fun. The other thing I want to mention about these resources is that most of them are free utilize them, right? I know we don't all have a ton of time, but I feel like they can be very beneficial, no matter how old your students are like, we've talked a lot today. I'm excited to look up some of the ones you guys mentioned that I didn't know about, and I think we're just getting more and more of them. So any honorable mentions?

Donell Pons: 50:53

Yeah, I've got one The New York Times, so I enjoy it as a publication for news. But also they've always they've had for a long time, probably 20 years, maybe more resources for teachers, and I've been surprised at how many teachers don't realize that. And they're free, so they have a whole section called Lessons in teaching, and a whole thing on how to teach writing, and they have eight modules. They do a new curriculum every year. So you can look at the new curriculum for writing. Much of it's geared towards teens that they do have opportunities for you to see what the ages are. The resources are so many that you could even Google in their New York Times. 100 free resources for teachers. So they've labeled it under different things. But I highly recommend browsing through there as an educator, because they have some really great things. They have AI and students and what they think about it and how they're using it. They have team topics, and we have a reporter that reports on that topic, and the students can send in questions, and then they get to see the reporter respond to the questions from teens. So it's really interactive. And I just think it's a great resource. I'm surprised I don't see it more often. Yeah, I know how cool is that we heard that they had teacher things. So when I would just went to New York Times, I didn't see anything. But if I Google, I just put in New York Times teachers. You think that would okay? And then lessons in teaching, writing lessons. It says, So, huh? Wow, okay, and it's mostly writing lessons. Yeah, as a publication that they are, it's mainly writing lessons, but they also have some math, they have some science, and they also have taking apart what we read. Oh, here we go to make sure the sourcing of it. How well did I understand that? Am I being led in what's being said? So it's a way to have some some savvy about what it is you're reading online. It's really okay, so it's called, so if you look for learning network, so that's what it's called, The Learning Network. So it's learning network, it's also lessons in teaching. And there's a bunch of terminology, okay, yeah,

Stacy Hurst: 52:56

I found like, a one big heading where it's like the Learning Network, and then there's all this stuff, and it tells you how to use the site and lesson plans, writing prompts, just like you said, quizzes. Oh my gosh. Okay, awesome, guys. I have a to do list, but I really want, I want to block out time go here. Lindsay, you were gonna mention another honorable mention? Yeah. Honorable mention. Devin kerns.com, forward slash finder with a pH. I use that all the time to find certain words with certain spellings, right? So you're like, when does Oh, you spell the sound Oh, okay, I'm gonna search up and see and then you can look for one syllable, two, symbol, three, syllable, whatever you need. Yeah. And then to go more from the orthographic patterns to the morphological patterns, or history, etymology, etym online, great dictionary. I love it. I use it daily, probably actually, so lots of good resources out there. What I also love about all of these resources is the the com the way it enhances teacher knowledge, and that gives us the opportunity to use our knowledge to distinguish, like Lindsay, the examples you gave of percentage of decodability, that is a perfect example using our teacher knowledge to make sure these tools work for the students that we're working with. And then, because it is the time of year that it is reading, Horizons is also offering free access to their online curriculum right now. And I know we you've probably heard about it because they've been promoting it, but if you go to reading horizons.com/free then you can access it there too. And that really is their whole program. So good stuff. Thank you guys for this conversation. I am like, I'm a little bit energized and motivated to go look these up now, and I'm excited for the possibilities. So thank you. Wow. Thanks. And those of you who are listening, if you have any other suggestions, we are open. I think we all. Three learned that there are way too many resources to cover in one episode, so feel free to send us what online resources you utilize and are helpful for you, and we hope that you'll join us on the next episode of literacy talks.

Narrator: 55:19

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where literacy momentum begins. Visit reading horizons.com/literacy. Talks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading. You.

Unknown: 55:40

Help you.