ILA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3

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Balmeo, Shirley

ED 638

IRA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #3



 

 

 

 



How common is CommonLit used in the classroom?

CommonLit (https://www.commonlit.org/), is mainly used for 3-12 grade level students is a rich-literacy resource offering variety of materials to help improve reading skills. The site is a free, web-based library of text, which includes poems, narratives, informational text, and historical articles.  The collection of text is easily filtered according to Common Core standards, genre, Lexile level, theme, or literary device.  The site provides reading assistance and accessible tools, such as read-aloud, translated in different languages and the use of the annotation tools for students. 

Teachers can review students' annotations to gauge student comprehension.  Assessment questions range from multiple choice to short answers, with the discussion questions probing students’ critical thinking.  Many of the passages and text sets also have a guiding question section to help students progress. 

An added feature is that passages are printable on a PDF format with footnotes, vocabulary words, and background information easily accessible to students to help with understanding the skill/concept of the text.  CommonLit offers a diagnostic assessment to determine baseline data on student performance at the beginning of the year. This site is also great for parents who home school their children, or just want to provide added practice for remediation or extended activities on literary skills. 

Finally, the site has a new feature known as CommonLit 360 Curriculum for 6-12 grade levels.  This new feature offers teachers a yearlong comprehensive curriculum with ready to use resources, supplemental activities, and materials for differentiated instructions. The paired text feature provide students both the fictional and informational text to a particular reading content or skill. 

One notable setback is that students will need to familiarize themselves with the site prior to beginning their lessons as they may need help utilizing the toolbar. In addition, each text does not adjust to multiple reading levels. The teacher may assign a text with a general Lexile level for each class, not necessarily for an individual student.  However, the teacher may use materials for differentiated instructions. Overall, CommonLit offers access to an immense collection of reliable, ready-to-print passages that enables teachers to assign standard-aligned reading online and track student progress.

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