As a mother of a soon to be kindergartner {eek!} I know that my youngest will soon be learning how to write her name, her abc’s and ever so slowly she will be learning how to read. I think its safe to say that we all know reading begins at home and a child’s success as a reader begins long before the first day of school. We started reading to our little ones long before they said their first words, we read books in the bath tub they had board books in the car..books in every nook and cranny so we never had to go to far to fill in the “read me a story” gap. I grew up loving books and it wasn’t uncommon to see me reading a couple of them at the same time so it’s important to me that they have learn to love reading too.
When my oldest was small she would watch tv programs that helped fed her appetite and love for reading but, with the other three they spent more time interacting with reading websites on our computer. Sheesh times sure have changed! It’s important to make sure you know what reading websites your children are visiting.
Here are 8 free reading websites for pre-readers & beginner readers that my kids love.
{Make sure you view the sites before introducing them to your kids to make sure the content is appropriate for the grade/age level. A few are geared to pre-schoolers!}
Reading Rainbow, the #1 education service, now offers its fully reimagined library of books, videos, and games for the Web, iPad, and Kindle Fire. With the mission of bringing a passion for reading to Every Child, Everywhere, Reading Rainbow is available at home, in the classroom, and on the go.
PBS Kids hosts some terrific educational material for children and their Between the Lions reading games and interactives are among the best. There are read-along folktales and fables with a twist, clever song videos of letter sounds, and amusing games.
Raz-Kids. The award-winning reading website where K-5 students go to read — anytime … Raz-Kids delivers hundreds of interactive, levelled eBooks spanning 27 levels. Parents can preview and review each quiz question and answer in addition to seeing their child’s score and skills missed.
Story Place – The Children’s Digital Library
Visit this award-winning site with your kids for some interactive online reading. Featuring original stories divided into two library categories, pre-school and elementary, all of the stories also offer a related educational activity for the kids to do after reading or listening to the story. There are also activities for parents and reading lists filled with recommendations for similar books your child may want to read.
Similar to Storyline Online, Read to Me features popular children’s books being read by famous performers. There are activity guides with hands-on ideas, discussion questions, and lesson plans that can easily be adapted to the Common Core State Standards. Entirely free, the site is colorful and engaging.
ABCya! Children can listen to short stories read aloud to them as they follow along with the highlighted text. ABCya! has a variety of educational games in addition to the featured stories. Free resources and materials are available for grades K through 5.
Oxford Owl
After registering for a free account, you have access to over 250 children’s audio books that can be used in the classroom. The book text is not part of the presentation, so students will not be able to follow along as it is read to them.
Book Adventure is a fun, free way to motivate your child
to read! Kids in grades K-8 can search for books, read
them offline, come back to quiz on what they’ve read,
and earn prizes for their reading success.
What Reading websites would you add to the list?
For more information on how parents can help children to be a good reader check out this excellent resource :http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/learntoread.pdf
Reading Rainbow is such an extraordinary reading resource for kids. Love it!
I loved it when my parents would read to me. And no doubt that created the foundation to get into a good college later and expand beyond our meager circumstances.
Great list of resources. We have used Reading Rainbow (and loved watching that show when I was a little kid on PBS!)
These are great resources. I’ll have to check them out. I need to get my 4 year old reading more.
I love that Reading Rainbow is accessible like this now. I used to absolutely love them when I was growing up.
This is awesome! I love anything that my kids and I can read, read, read! We will be checking out these sites today!
I used to love Reading Rainbow growing up. It’s great that they have been around for so many generations to help make learning fun.
I think Oxford Owl would be good for headphone use. There are times you don’t have to follow along, so this could be useful for the kiddos.
I did not know about these, thank you for sharing them. They would be great to use in our homeschooling!
Wow, I didn’t know we had so much to choose from. I’m an advocate of reading, I make sure the kids enjoy reading just as much as I do.
I wonder if these web sites existed when I was younger, if I would have liked reading more?!
These are great to know! My kids love reading so this gives them something to check out online!
I have used several of these sites for my son
Thank you so much for sharing this list! My little guy is all about reading right now but he wants to do it all on the iPad. These sites will be a perfect fit!
I love this so much! Reading is so important for kids and having free, easily accessible ways to encourage it is so wonderful.
Great tips. I can only stress that reading online does not replace reading with parents. It’s a supplement. This is a precious time for bonding and also instilling our own love for reading in our kids, as I’m sure you know!
I am a major bookworm and I want my kids to follow suit! Thank you for this list, time to go take a look at them.
These are great resources! Reading is so important. Its a lifelong skill and can be a great benefit to those who enjoy it from a young age!
Love your list! I will definitely share it with some friends who have little ones! Reading is so important!
Thanks! I am hoping that these resources will help not only my little one but others as well.
The cost of tutoring programs is astronomical so if we can help them at home for free why not!
This is a really great tips. this is perfect to accessing my kids from educational, thank you for sharing
We love Starfall.com – great list of helpful sites for parents! This makes me so happy!
What a cool resource list. It’s a fun way to encourage reading too.
WOW this would be fantastic for road trips for kids.
We are definitely jumping on the book bandwagon. Great incentives for kids and these are some fantastic resources for moms
Reading is a really big deal at our house. I got my love of reading from my Mom and hope to pass it along to my 3 daughters too! These are great online resources! Thanks for sharing!
Every time I see REading Rainbow I get a smile on my face. The memories!! These are some great online tools to help the kids learn to read. Thank you for the ideas.
Thanks for this! I didn’t know Reading rainbow was still around .. i think its one of the best ones yet
This is a great collection of sites. I’ve seen such an advantage to reading out loud to our kids for sure!
These sound like great sites. I was all for giving my kids access to educational websites.
Awesome list. A couple I did not know about. Thanks.
I can’t imagine having websites to help with reading; it would have been great when I was learning to read! My niece is going into first grade this year and loves reading. My sister has done a great job of instilling a love for reading.
WOW! what a great list of sites, thank you . I am going to share this with our youngest’s teachers too.
I love being able to have new spots to look for books.
Thanks
I always wonder what my life would have been like if I’d had such excellent resources growing up!
I think they help a lot. It’s always good to supplement their school education.
I wish they had these when son was younger. I use to read to him ll the time but I think interacting on their own is really good.
This is a great list. I will be sure to pass this on to my sisters in law with young nieces and nephews!