As another new school year is upon us, there are great educational technology tools to access and support the diverse readers in your classroom. Some are new and noteworthy, while others have been around for awhile and continue to update and enhance their features. Here are my ten go to’s to help support student readers and deepen comprehension.
I have been in love with this reading platform since it was in beta. Purchased by McGraw Hill a few years ago, this reading platform has all the scaffolding tools to best support struggling, on grade level, and ENL readers. The differentiated tools available on Actively Learn include:
- Sync with Google Classroom
- Translate in 4 different languages
- Reads aloud text
- Insert notes, videos, & links
- Customize texts and questions
2. Newsela
Another reading platform that provides leveled text by lexile is Newsela. Some articles are available in Spanish. Newsela is primarily nonfiction texts and have lots of content connections to science and social studies.
For students with dyslexia and other reading deficits that cause them to read below grade level, leveled readers may not be enough. While they help students learn to read, if used exclusively, they also limit students’ opportunities to acquire grade-level content. Learning Ally provides audio books with human-read audiobooks complete with word highlighting. The highlighted text allows readers to follow along with the material while listening to a human voice, increasing engagement, retention and comprehension. This is a paid subscription but worth it. There are many other free audio texts include ESL-Bits.net (K-12 Audiobooks for ESL audience — lots of classics available) and Storyline Online which includes tons of picture books read by actors.
This AI text to speech tool converts text, PDF, and 20+ formats into spoken audio so you can listen to your documents, ebooks, and school materials anytime, anywhere. There is a website or Chrome extension. I love this tool to help students when they cannot find an audio version of a text to help comprehend.
5. ReWordify
When students have to comprehend a primary source or a reading above their reading level. Again, this is a mother AI tool that allows you to cut and paste a text and ReWordify will simplify difficult English, for faster comprehension.
6. Diffit
Since we are on an AI trend, this tool is AwEsOmE!! Teachers use Diffit to instantly get leveled resources for any lesson, saving tons of time and helping all students access grade level content. You want to create your own leveled text sets, this is the tool for you. I have already used to to create different reading passages to help build background knowledge and improve reading comprehension for struggling readers. What is even cooler is that you can copy and edit any of the text to best support your students.
7. Edpuzzle
Our students are visual learners and what better way to help students understand and comprehend a topic with a great video. TedEd, YouTube, National Geographic, and Khan Academy all over videos that help explain concepts and build knowledge. Visual texts are a great entry point to build background knowledge or reinforce a key concept. When we immerse students in visual text they are able to connect, visualize, and learn deeply. With Edpuzzle you can insert questions throughout the video as a check for understanding and to track students thinking as they are watching.
8. Padlet
Padlet is a virtual bulletin board that allows collaborators to simultaneously create and organize posts of any content type, whether it be text, documents, images, videos, audio, or links. This is a great tool for students to share their thinking about a reading of a digital, print, audio, or visual text. Teachers might also utilize it to scaffold or jigsaw materials which students respond to right on the Padlet.
9. Flip
Previously known as Flipgrid, Flip is a closed video discussion platform for students to share their insight via audio and video. I have seen teachers utilize Flip for book discussions, reading reflections, read alouds, and even readers theater. Students need a code or specialized link in order to access the video platform since it is not public on the internet. Teachers can also change the settings to preview all the videos before they are made public to the classroom.
10. Canva
Canva is not new but a fantastic digital creation tool that has reinvented itself for education providing templates and inspiration boards for teachers to use to disseminate information and for students to create their own stories and reflections to their reading.
Of course this list can go on but I wanted to share educational tech tools that can optimize student learning potential. It is always helpful to break down readings in manageable tasks, teach with visuals, build multimodal text sets, and know your students to create learning opportunities that support their skills, abilities, cultures, and identity.
The Teaching Factor 
