Thursday, April 12, 2012

FREE Online Reading Comprehension Activities for ELLs:)

If you teach ELLs, you are probably always looking for ways to improve their reading skills beyond mastery of the textbook passages. In this day of lean school budgets, teachers are continually looking for free or almost free resources to support their ELLs in this area. Though the internet offers much, not everything there is geared to ELLs. More times than not, teachers have to adapt materials for their students. This site is geared to ELLs at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of English.

Click on READING COMPREHENSION and you will find a wide variety of reading passages geared to 3 levels of English proficiency-beginners, intermediates, and advanced. Please note that these passages offer students the opportunity to also prepare for high stakes tests. Teachers have the option to print out the passages which helps if access to computer labs is limited. Printing them out also has the advantage of discussing test taking skills and then using them as a way to answer the questions.

Further some of the reading passages offer students the opportunity to write paragraphs. If teachers avail themselves of this option with their students, they will also be provided with a clearer idea of areas where students are weak in writing. Also, since 3 reading levels are listed, differentiation of instruction comes with ease. Assign students to reading passages that the teacher thinks they can handle. As skills improve, more challenging passages can be assigned. Another option for teachers is to make the reading assignment a partner or small group one. With clear rules and time limits, partners or teams can not only find the correct answer, but also be able to explain or show where they found the answers. The more practice ELLs have in this area, the higher their test scores will be.


ENGLISH MAVEN even offers practice in spelling, grammar, sentence completion, punctuation, synonyms/antonyms, etc. for ELLs. Students can never have enough practice here as we all know. With each tab, you will find anywhere from 10 to 40 activities/quizzes. Computers are non-judgmental so students are free to practice as many times as they like without fear of receiving a grade:) These activities must be done online though since there is no print option.

I hope the site works for your students:)

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS

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