We all know teaching reading is no easy task. Especially after COVID, many of us started providing reading lessons online to accommodate our students. From planning lessons to assessment and reporting – we have combined ten tools for reading teachers to help you make the most of your time with your students.
PS: Here is a nice article if you want to learn how to get a dyslexia test.
10 Tools For Reading Teachers
See below the categories our list of tools will cover:
Assessment
Dystech
Dystech is the go-to tool for online reading assessments. It provides a friendly interface that can be used on any device. Their assessment covers reading fluency, reading accuracy, sight words and phonetic decoding. It also provides automatic reporting, very useful to monitor reading progress and share improvements with parents.
Price: Dystech is completely free, access all their standardised assessments for up to 10 students.
Teaching Resources
Phonics book
Talking about tools for reading teachers, phonics books are amazing tools to teach how to read. They are convenient, fun and have a real impact. You can find a list of free phonic books here. One of the great resources we love is Decodable Readers Australia.
Price: Start at $528 for a complete set
Flashcards
Make reading fun with a set of flashcards! Flash cards can help learn and memorise information quickly, which is perfect for early readers. See a video below about how to use flash cards – you can get hold of a free set of flashcards here
Price: Free
Koala Classroom
Koala Classroom is a great tool to provide fun and exciting lessons to your students online. In particular it allows you to provide a great teaching experience to your remote students. It also integrates really well with the Dystech reading assessment and can help you streamline assessments, reporting and teaching all at once.
Price: Free, with paid features
Epic
How does over 40,000 books, audiobooks and learning videos sound? This is what Epic has to offer, a huge library for content that you can use to teach your students reading, or even homework to give them. Perfect for ages 5 to 12. Epic makes it onto our list of tools for reading teachers because we know many educators use it, and find it super useful – we hope you do too!
Price: USD$9.99 per month
Understood
If you think one of your students might have some learning differences (e.g Dyslexia, ADHD, or Autism). Understood is certainly a great place to start obtaining information. You can share the link with parents and let them browse some of the information. It also has a lot of useful resources to help you navigate these challenges.
Price: Free
Wild Reading
If you decide to leverage nature during your reading lessons, Wild Reading has a curated curriculum to help you achieve this. The main goal is to take your learning outside and reduce the “classroom” feeling of teaching for the child.
Price: start at US$79
Parental Resources
Alphablocks
If you are looking to help parents give their child something to do, then the YouTube channel Alphablocks is here to help. This channel makes a great short video for children to stay entertained and also learn fundamental concepts of phonological awareness. Make sure to start with level one and proceed level by level.
Price: Free
Duolingo ABC
This one is amazing, and it’s 100% free to use. Duolingo ABC was designed by educators to help children learn to read in a fun way. There are stories, great animation and fun progress throughout the app. This is certainly something parents can setup for their child and it will support your teaching along the way.
Price: Free
Dyscreen
Dyscreen is the Dystech dyslexia screener specifically made for parents. It allows a parent to test for the likelihood of dyslexia with their child by themself. Dystech also provides a parent support letter to help families advocate for support.
Price: A$19.99 per screening
Conclusion
Now that you have seen some of the tools available for reading teachers, we hope you are more equipped to support your students. If you think we are missing some important tools, please don’t hesitate to contact us.