Top 5 Reading Websites Your Students Will Love

Are you looking for great reading websites your students can do independently while you meet with small groups? Here are my students’ 5 favorite reading websites.

Top 5 Reading Websites

#1 – Epic! Books

Epic! is my students’ favorite online reading program. With over 25,000 books to choose from, they never get bored. 

Why Students Love It:

• There are books for everyone on Epic! All of my students are able to find something at their level and in a genre they enjoy.            
• Many of the books read to the students. Some are “Read to Me” and others are Audio Books. Kids of all ages still love having someone read to them.
• There are educational videos the students love to watch on Epic!
• Students can earn and collect badges for reading books.

Why I Love It:

• Epic! is completely free for educators.
• I love watching my students get excited about reading, and they cheer on the days they get to use Epic!
• I can assign individual books or collections of books to students.
• Some of the books already have quizzes with them, and you can create your own quiz for any of the books.

What I Don’t Love About It:

• I haven’t found anything I don’t love about Epic! yet. 

How Do You Sign Up?

1. Go to the Epic! Website, and click “Educators.” Select “Sign Up for Free”.
2. Click “Get Started,” and fill in your information.
3. Go to your Dashboard and add your students to your class. They now have the option to import them from Google Classroom, so that makes it really quick and easy.
4. Write down your class code.
5. Have the students go to the website. They will click “Sign In”. At the bottom, they should select “Sign In with your Classroom Code”.
6. Give them the class code to enter. That way they will be added to your class, and you can give them assignments and track their progress.
7. Your students will each have a little avatar with their name. When they click on that, they will have access to all the books.

#2 – Freckle

Freckle has a math program in addition to the reading program. Both are great for center time.

Why Students Love It:

• They earn coins for answering reading questions correctly. Then, they can spend those points in the Piggy Store and design a character and a house.
• There are a lot of high interest passages on Freckle.

Why I Love It:

• Freckle gives the students a pretest and matches them with passages that are a good fit for them.
• There are about 5 different reading levels for each passage. I can choose one passage to assign to my whole class, but they each read it at their level. 

What I Don’t Love About It:

• There are limits to the free program. You can only post one assignment at a time. That means if a student hasn’t completed the previous task, you have to delete it to give the rest of the class a new assignment.
• You can’t access past data with the free program. The only scores you can see are for the one assignment that is currently active. 

How Do You Sign Up?

1. Use my referral link to go to the Freckle website. By using that link, you will get a free month of the School Edition of Front Row. Click “Sign Up Free.”
2. Enter your information, and create a class by inserting your students’ first and last names. Freckle will give you a class code.
3. When the students are ready to sign in, they will go to the website and click “Student Sign In.” Then, they will enter their first and last name and the class code to get started.

3. Digital Readworks

I’ve used the Readworks website for years to help me plan reading lessons. Digital Readworks takes that to a whole new level.

Why Students Love It:

• The passages are high interest.

Why I Love It:

• I can differentiate assignments by giving students passages on their independent level.
• The questions provide great practice for both multiple choice and open ended responses.
• The multiple choice questions are automatically graded. I just have to check the open ended responses.

What I Don’t Love About It:

• Once students turn in an assignment, they can no longer fix it. I have to send it back to them for corrections. 

How Do I Sign Up?

1. Go to the Readworks website. Click “I’m an Educator” and “Sign Up”.
2. Create your account, and get your class code. Enter your students into your class.
3. Have your students go to the Student Sign In Page and enter the class code. 

#4 – Storyline Online

Want to have a book read aloud to you by a celebrity? Storyline Online is the place for you.

Why Students Like It: 

• They like seeing who is reading the book.
• They love listening to books on the computer.

Why I Love It:

• Many of the books are familiar titles, so I can easily choose one to assign that goes with the skill we’re working on that week. I usually have a paper for the students to fill out as they listen.
• Each book has a Teacher’s Guide to give you ideas for how to extend the book across the curriculum.

How Do You Sign Up?

1. There’s no need to sign up for this one. Just send your students to the Storyline Online website, and they can get started right away.

#5 – Storia

Storia is a website full of ebooks from Scholastic. My son’s school has a subscription to Storia, so I looked in his account to find out about this one. My school doesn’t subscribe to Storia. . .yet.

Why Students Love It (According to my second grader):

• The books are interesting.
• I love the activities that are in some of the books.
• I get to choose books that are at my reading level and that look interesting.

Why His Teacher Loves It:

• It is a great program for center time and keeps the students engaged.
• There is a quiz for each book to check for reading comprehension.

What I Don’t Love About It:

• It’s a completely paid program. I would love to try Storia with my students, but my district isn’t willing to pay for it yet.

How Do I Sign Up?

1. Visit the Storia website for more information about how to sign up.

Bonus: Reading Eggspress

I recently discovered a new reading website, Reading Eggspress. Click the link to find out why my students beg to use it every day.

Watch this video to take a tour of these reading websites with me.

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Set Up Your Technology Center

Using these 5 reading websites will make it easy for you to set up your reading centers.  I put the links to the websites in Google Classroom, so students can easily get to them.

Check out top 5 math websites my students love.

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What Do You Think?

What reading websites do your students love?

Let me know in the comments below.

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