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Amazing resource. I would start with this and use Unite for Literacy for leveled books.

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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TextProject is the only website with student texts and teacher guides based on the science of reading-available for free download. Download our research-based, open-access resources for teachers, teacher educators, parents, tutors, and students.

TextProject is the only website with high-quality student texts and teacher guides that are all available for free download.

download-student-texts-banner

Leveled | Research-based | Open access

Vocabulary instruction through networks of words

Vocabulary instruction through networks of words

A blog and video series based on evidence from reading research

A blog and video series based on evidence from reading research

Free Classroom Materials for Teaching Reading

Classroom-proven resources including favorite books, reading passages, vocabulary lessons, word pictures, literacy lists & forms.

Free Student Texts

Free texts for reading instruction! TextProject is the sole website with free texts based on the science of reading.

For programs such as BeginningReaders and FYI for Kids, world-renowned researcher and teacher educator, Patricia Cunningham, has written lessons to accompany the texts.

Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary is the strongest predictor of reading comprehension. TextProject provides free resources for the four kinds of vocabulary words that contribute to reading comprehension: core, academic, content-area, and literary.

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Strategies, tools, and texts to bring beginning and struggling readers to proficient levels of literacy

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Leveled readers and fluency practice -- subscription but it looks like there are free features.

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Great source for leveled & predictable/patterned texts!

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Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. Literacy is at the core of a healthy community, so we unite with partners to enable all families to read with their young children.

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Tricky to navigate but lots of free books to access digitally

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ICDL - International Children’s Digital Library

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Book Creator is an app (it's pretty amazing) that allows students to create digital books. There are all kinds of fun features. There is a 90 day free trial because of coronavirus. Pricing after that is $60-$120 per year (depending on how many books.

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This Google Doc has pages of apps and resources for digital teaching including links to tutorial videos!

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Curated resources from National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

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Curated resources from National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

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Online learning and instruction offer their own particular benefits and challenges at any time-here we suggest some resources and activities that may help those suddenly faced with teaching online.
Download the PDF version.
Click on each item to jump directly to the resource described or scroll to browse.
Writing Together: Ten Weeks Teaching and Studenting in an Online Writing Course
This book narrates the experience of an asynchronous online writing course (OWC) through the dual perspective of the teacher, Scott, and a student, Diana Gasiewski, who participated in that OWC. Both teacher and student describe their strategies, activities, approaches, thoughts, and responses as they move week by week through the experience of teaching and taking an OWC.

You've probably heard that audiobooks serve as a useful resource for struggling readers. Classroom teachers sometimes use audiobooks to help students gain access to material that's too difficult for them to read independently. Audiobooks help novice readers build vocabulary, boost pronunciation skills, and develop fluency. What you might not have considered is what audiobooks offer proficient readers.

Book-to-film adaptations provide great ways for children to explore their favorite books in new ways.

Read on to see how you can use comics and cartoons with children and students.

Children and students need to feel that they own their space and the learning that takes place in it.

Encourage family relationship building by participating in family activities during breaks from school.

The following resources from NCTE and ReadWriteThink.org provide more ideas for fostering family literacy.

Nothing tests your knowledge like a crossword puzzle! But did you know the format of a crossword puzzle can be an effective learning tool, too?

If you are spending time with friends and family, in person or virtually, work together on these activities!

Since a majority of our students are engaging with social media outside the classroom, it makes good sense to integrate it into learning.

Breaks from school offer wonderful opportunities for families, caregivers, and out-of-school educators to help improve reading and writing. ReadWriteThink.org's Parent & Afterschool Resources and NCTE provide many resources, activities, and tools.

Reading and writing texts online are basic skills that students need to be literate citizens in today's world. Teaching with blogs provides the opportunity to engage students in both of these literacy activities, and the strategy has the additional benefit of enabling students to publish their writing easily and to share their writing with an authentic audience.

Take a few minutes and send someone a handwritten letter. Then, invite your students to write letters using these resources from ReadWriteThink.org.

Zines are small-circulation, self-published works of original or appropriated texts and images. Here are some resources from NCTE and ReadWriteThink.org to get you started.
Voices from the Middle
Lesson plans with specific digital tools mentioned to complete projects/tasks.
English Journal
The authors examine photovoice projects created by students and teacher candidates who explored issues of gender in response to a young adult novel and co-researched that process.
English Journal
This article describes blogging implementation in ninth-grade pre-advanced placement language arts classes to support strong writing practices. The author found that blogging empowered high school authors to craft worlds of digital expression where they pushed each other to become stronger writers.
Voices from the Middle
Recommendations of digital classroom tools from The Nerdy Book Club.
Voices from the Middle
This article describes how a middle school teacher uses technology, within an otherwise traditional writing workshop, to facilitate differentiated mini-lessons, confer with writers, and offer writers opportunity for peer response. In the end, she balances ways of streamlining workflow digitally, while maintaining the integrity of writing workshop and offering greater differentiation to meet the needs of writers in her middle school classroom.
English Leadership Quarterly
In this interview, Chris Bronke, teacher and CEL member, discusses useful digital tools for conferring.
Voices from the Middle
This article offers a model for organizing collaborative learning outside of classroom time. It describes affordances and constraints of the digital space and the process used. It also offers insight to how teaching in online spaces looks different from face-to-face instruction and how to support students. Includes screenshots that show very specific ways to set up a class module along with discussions of what to consider as you construct this.
English Journal
The authors worked with preservice teachers and youth in a juvenile detention center to pilot a curriculum focused on critical engagement with online text. Discussion of a specific lesson plan that involves analyzing Instagram posts.
English Journal
The setting and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird came to life in new ways when eighth graders in Georgia explored virtual reality apps as they studied the novel.
Voices from the Middle
While this specific lesson was classroom-focused, it could easily be adapted to digital work, especially related to current events.
English Journal
As an alternative to the traditional research paper for an English class, a digital narrative assignment positioned students as multimedia storytellers.
English Leadership Quarterly
Discussion of a specific lesson plan and digital tools for sharing peer responses to writing.
Language Arts
This Perspectives on Practice column focuses on using student audio recordings to help them craft their writing. Students use audio recorders of their own choice (like a smartphone or other kind of device) to record their own thoughts as they draft projects.
ReadWriteThink.org RESOURCES

ReadWriteThink's mission is to provide educators, parents, and after-school professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials.

Parent & Afterschool Resources

So just how are you supposed to read aloud? Or help kids write? Get quick and useful suggestions from the experts.

Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students. View by day, by week, or by month.

Want to help kids and teens with their reading and writing skills, but not sure where to begin? We've got engaging, step-by-step activities-just pick one and get started!

Kids and teens should read and write even when they are out of school. Why is this so important? Check out this flyer.

ReadWriteThink.org ACTIVITIES K-12

Act out a story after reading it. Work together to create a script and make costumes and props. Then invite others to watch and hear your story!

Choose favorite rhyming songs or nursery rhymes then replace the rhyming words with seasonal themes.

Help children use favorite photos to write a homemade memory book.

Boost vocabulary by taking an imaginary trip into space. After a lunar "landing," children return to Earth with a galaxy of new words.

After reading If You Give a Moose a Muffin, have a "Muffin Party"! Children will write invitations, follow a recipe, and enjoy sharing their homemade muffins.

Share a fun book about staying safe and then talk about real-life safety issues before writing a letter to someone in your community who can help.

Children will learn their address and phone number to help keep them safe.

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you're surrounded by brilliant shades of green! Observe and collect sensory images from nature and use the sights, sounds, smells, and textures to create original nature poetry.

In this activity, children go on a hunt for places where they can read and enjoy books: on a family road trip, at the pool, at the doctor's office.

Work together, create a bingo board that can be played while walking around town, going to the zoo or a museum, or traveling on a vacation.

In this activity, children write short everyday notes to remind, plan, request, or compliment others.

Find three fun online games that are designed to help children learn to recognize letters and how they sound.

These activities will have children reading signs, logos, brand names, and other words all over their homes and communities.

Children love books that rhyme and to create their own rhymes. It's a fun way to learn how words sound similar to one another!

With a piece of paper and a pen, kids can learn anywhere! This activity gets kids writing, looking closely at letters, and learning some new words in any room of the house.

Encourage children to connect words and pictures by having them write their own captions for family or magazine photos.

When you plant a garden, involve children in the process by writing down questions and observations on the garden's growth in a garden journal.

From dishes to doors, find shapes all around you while strengthening important reading and math skills.

Make learning how to spell words a little "wild and crazy" by ditching the pen and paper and using unique materials that will make your kids really smile while they're having fun.

Children incorporate materials from outdoors with paints or crayons to create pieces of art to display on their clotheslines, fences, or porches for a neighborhood art show.

Want to visit a museum without leaving your computer? Virtually dig for famous historical artifacts from around the world found in the British Museum.

Get children excited about writing and descriptive language by creating yummy descriptions of their favorite candy.

Use recipes to help children practice reading and writing step-by-step instructions. Have them sample the results to see how they did.

Use shape and theme poems-poems that look like the things they describe-as a fun way to introduce children to poetry.

Children learn how to make a convincing argument-an important skill in school and in life.

Have children make cards describing their favorite characters from the books they have read.

Using published comics and cartoons as examples, children can create their own while playing with images and language.

Children can interview family members and make an illustrated timeline of the most important family events and memories.

In this activity, children look closely at living things in their natural environments and then make books about what they see.

Children will draw on their knowledge of story structure and fairy tales to write their own.

Can't make it to a zoo? After reading a book about apes, observe animal habits and habitats using one of the many webcams broadcasting from zoos and aquariums around the United States and the world.

Playing board games or card games can be a fun activity, so why not make your own?

Sort through your junk mail and talk about what you find for a fun literacy activity before recycling it!

Children watch the nighttime sky come alive as they read a book about fascinating elements in the night and write a poem/story about the things they learn!

Let children explore an interesting subject-themselves. An online tool will teach them to summarize and organize information as they write.

While enjoying a book that features a journey, children write postcards from the perspective of the main character for each stop along the trip.

Shake up children's reading by introducing them to new and fun formats for storytelling.

After reading about historical figures and other important people that have changed the world, children choose someone that they consider to be "amazing"-either someone they've heard about or someone they know-and create a book page that highlights this person.

Create a treasure hunt out of word-puzzle clues hidden around the home or yard.

Everyone loves getting a greeting card, especially if it's handmade. Make a funny or thoughtful greeting card or invitation with pictures and a poem, a joke, or a riddle.

Kids will love Hink Pinks-word puzzles that use two-word clues to lead to a rhyming solution. Try one and get hooked yourself: Obese feline? Fat cat!

Brainstorm popular expressions with friends and family, then explore their meanings through game play and writing/drawing/cut-and-paste activities.

Explore fairy tales told in both old and new ways and use an online tool to help children create their own "fractured" version of a fairy tale.

Have children explore the different parts of mystery writing by making a puzzle about a favorite book. They can then invent and write their own mysteries using the online Mystery Cube tool.

Let children practice using different types of words in a fill-in-the-blank-story game before making their own word list for a magnetic poetry set.

Encourage children to spend a little time thinking and writing about just what makes a hero and who their personal heroes might be.

Visit a museum or art gallery (either online or in person) with children and teens, helping them find inspiration for a story based on a piece of art that they particularly enjoy or relate to.

After reading a book or magazine, children and teens can choose a section and transform it into a "found poem."

Before seeing a film based on a book, classic or contemporary, children can learn about filmmaking and create their own scenes based on their favorite moments from the book.

Invite young adults to write letters to classmates, postcards from travels, and emails to family and friends.

Writing stories that imitate a certain genre or type of fiction allows children to explore a book they love by imagining new twists for their favorite characters and plot lines.

This activity invites children and teens to explore various careers and then write about what they might want to be when they grow up in a blog.

Kids learn about weather sayings throughout history while writing and illustrating a book for younger children.

Explore how music can have an emotional impact on a scene in a movie, then help teens write and film a scene of their own.

Invite teens to explore issues that are important to them and then write a script and film a video public service announcement.

Work with teens to learn about family members' significant personal experiences by interviewing them and sharing their stories with the rest of the family.

Engage teens in this activity in which they use photographs to examine and write about courage on a blog.

This activity can help teens create picture books that a teen caregiver can then share with children.

This activity will help pairs or groups of teens explore a hands-on approach that lets them become both comic book writers and comic book artists.

In this activity teens are encouraged to explore their reading history as they remember books they liked reading as children and then revisit these old favorites.

Work with a teen to create a wiki with everything people should know about the teen's top ten favorite songs-and your favorite songs as well! Then invite friends to add their favorite songs too.

Teens can take part in the process of building family histories by recording the stories, or memoirs, of family members.

In this project, teens create autobiographies, adding music selections to their life stories.

This activity gives teens an opportunity to write reviews on the movies, television shows, music, restaurants, and books they love-and hate!

Using a variety of artifacts, mementos, and technologies, teens can create an electronic scrapbook of their most important moments in high school.

In this activity, you can discuss with teens how they can tell the "good" characters from the "bad" ones by watching for clues that the movie makers have left.

This activity will help teens create a professional résumé that effectively presents their skills and talents to future employers.

FROM OTHER EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS

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Resources for Virtual Instruction and Online Learning - NCTE

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Online learning and instruction offer their own particular benefits and challenges at any time-here we suggest some resources and activities that may help those suddenly faced with teaching online. Download the PDF version. Click on each item to jump directly to the resource described or scroll to browse.

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Screencast-omatic is free and videos can be uploaded to Google Classroom from the app.

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The thought ended almost before it started: "This is so overwhelming." It was all one teacher managed to type before she stopped short, vexed into silence, perhaps, by the sheer size of the problem. In the pregnant pause that followed, undoubtedly, every teacher tracking the unspooling thread-about the dizzying, rapidly escalating viral crisis that was closing schools across the country-recognized the chasm they were all facing as well, and took a deep breath.

In the next few hours, over 500 teachers joined two Facebook conversations about teaching during the coronavirus pandemic, spilling out their concerns and anxieties: What will we do if the schools close for months? How can I shift to online learning if we're closing tomorrow, or even in a few hours? How will special education students be cared for, and IEPs administered? What about children who have no internet access, or who will be required, as Keith Schoch thoughtfully noted, to "become de facto babysitters" for their brothers and sisters. "There is no digital divide, but there is a digital abyss, and America's rural poor are living at the bottom of it," said Anne Larsen, with devastating concision. What if, in the end, the school systems decide that online learning is working just fine, and never reopen?

The panic was all perfectly understandable.

But there were plenty of teachers in the mix who had weeks of crisis experience under their belts by that time-several in Hong Kong and Italy and the state of Washington, for example-and others who had long careers in online and distance learning. In the end, too, there were many fantastic, highly creative teachers providing strategies as fast as the obstacles appeared.

At the highest level, a shift in mindset would be required-even the most optimistic educators conceded the point. There are plenty of strategies and tactics we're covering at Edutopia-and we'll continue to-but here are the crucial emotional and psychological scaffolds that our audience agreed would be needed to teach in this new paradigm.

Expect Trial... and Plenty of Error

Start by being reasonable with yourself. It is, in fact, impossible to shift to distance learning overnight without lots of trial and error. Expect it, plan for it, and do your best to make peace with it.

"I can tell you, now that we're in week 7 of online learning, that much of what you will do will be trial and error," wrote Stacy Rausch Keevan, who was teaching in Hong Kong. "Don't stress about that-it won't do you any good. For my middle school English and humanities classes, I'm offering the same lessons I would normally do live, but in smaller doses."

Acknowledge the Extraordinary

Reset your baseline. We're all operating in the shadow of a global pandemic, and it is disorienting and limiting. Business as usual is unrealistic.

The real "points to consider" are not "the strict adherence to 'regular' conditions and norms," wrote Amy Rheault-Heafield in a reply to a question about how to structure distance learning like more typical learning experiences, "but how to provide a rich experience to all learners who are now without 'traditional' teachers standing beside them in classes."

So while you should try to provide "meaningful activities," cautioned elementary teacher John Thomas, "we should remember that on short notice-and because many of us have limited PD utilizing these tools-we can't tackle everything immediately. In other words, we should give ourselves the time and the permission to figure this out."

Reduce the Workload (for Yourself and Your Students)

If your district allows it, you should plan to do less. Students won't be able to work as productively, anyway-so if you can't scale back you'll be sending them work they cannot do-and your own life and family need added care.

"Feedback from students and families over the last 10 days in Italy is 'less is more,'" commented Jo Gillespie. "Consider that parents are trying to work from home, and siblings are vying for computer and Wi-Fi time. Try Google quizzes using Forms, a reading log, some short live sessions with teachers and classmates, maybe vocabulary extension, maths and geometry problems (but not too many). And that's probably enough."

And Keevan, the teacher in Hong Kong with weeks of experience, confirmed that time and distance play funny games during a crisis: "What would normally take you one class period to teach in the classroom will probably take you twice as long."

No Person Is an Island

Humans are social animals. Working from home, or worse, from quarantine, is isolating and often depressing for both teachers and students.

Make a concerted effort to speak to other colleagues and trusted professionals to provide emotional and psychological context to your work. Teaching at this moment is extraordinarily hard, and you'll need the virtual company of people who are experiencing what you are.

And don't forget to "reach out to students as often as you can," said Keevan, who still teaches classes live despite a (slightly inconvenient!) 13-hour time difference. Or you can facilitate peer-to-peer communication. John Thomas assigns pen pals in his first- and second-grade classes, so that kids with no internet can feel like they belong.

Everyone Thinks They Can't-Before They Can

Some degree of pessimism and self-doubt comes with the territory. Teachers in the Facebook thread advised more perspective-taking and being more patient with yourself: You know how to teach, and you will figure this out in time.

"We are in week 7 and I have three children of my own at home," wrote Salecia Host, a teacher in Tianjin, China, reflecting on the arc of her emotional response to the crisis. "Just take it day by day. It gets less overwhelming and more routine."

Try to remain calm-though you'll have a few moments where that goes out the window-and keep plugging away: "Being open-minded and flexible is key," said Kaz Wilson, who also works in China. "Everyone thinks you can't until you pause, talk it out with folks who are doing it, and know that you'll get through it."

Mind the Gap

Your work will be hard, but there are students facing more severe challenges. Students with no internet or no computer will need support, as will those with learning differences or other circumstances that make distance learning especially difficult. Supporting these students was on almost everyone's mind-it came up dozens of times in the Facebook thread.

"I'm in Italy. Our schools closed a few weeks ago without any previous warning. We shifted to online immediately. It is hard and exhausting," admitted Eleonora Borromeo, before providing a ray of hope. "Equity is an issue. Assessment is an issue. But the students are doing their best and giving us the strength to go on."

Solutions from our audience of teachers focused on the old analog approaches: paper-and-pencil tasks, workbooks and activity packets that can be mailed home, and updating parents and students via phone calls daily.

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Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment

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The thought ended almost before it started: "This is so overwhelming." It was all one teacher managed to type before she stopped short, vexed into silence, perhaps, by the sheer size of the problem.

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Reading and writing texts online are basic skills that students need to be literate citizens in today's world. Teaching with blogs provides the opportunity to engage students in both of these literacy activities, and the strategy has the additional benefit of enabling students to publish their writing easily and to share their writing with an authentic audience.

When students write entries and comment on the entries of their peers, blogs become an integral part of a lively literacy community. Students can post on such topics as journal/diary entries, reflections on their writing process, details on their research projects, commentary on recent events or readings, and drafts for other writing they are doing.

Once a student posts an entry, others in the class can respond, provide supportive feedback, and offer additional suggestions or perspectives. By writing and commenting on blogs, students write for real readers (not just for their teachers). As a result, students focus on clear communication and get immediate feedback on whether they communicate effectively.

Check out these additional resources for teaching with blogs:

Weekly Writer's Blogs: Building a Reflective Community of Support
Students explore the conventions of blog writing while using it to self-reflect on their writing and communicate with classmates about one another's reflections.

Creating Character Blogs
Students view examples of blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character.

Using Microblogging and Social Networking to Explore Characterization and Style
Students use social networking sites to trace the development of characters by assuming the persona of a character on a class site and sending a set number of tweets, or status updates.

What Would Ben, Tom, and George Think? Blogging about the American Revolution
After researching famous people of the American Revolution, students take on the identities of these Patriots and Loyalists. Students then participate in a blog, writing responses about events leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War.

Blog about Courage Using Photos
Engage teens in this activity in which they use photographs to examine and write about courage on a blog.

The Blog of Anne Frank?: Taking on Social Roles through Online Writing
Anne Frank shared her experiences through a private diary that became public as a book. In this lesson, students will consider how writing creates social identities as they blog about a political issue.

Create a Career Blog
This activity invites children and teens to explore various careers and then write about what they might want to be when they grow up in a blog.

Blogtopia: Blogging about Your Own Utopia
Students work together to create their own utopias, using blogs as the primary source of publication.

Blogging in the Primary Grades? Yes, Indeed!
Give students an authentic reason to read and write by researching blogs written by their peers around the world and then writing their own.

How else do you use blogs with students?

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December 7 is Letter Writing Day! Take a few minutes, and send someone a hand written letter. Then, invite your students to also write letters using these resources from ReadWriteThink.org.

Tone, purpose, and audience. In this lesson, students compare an e-mail with a traditional letter. They then work in small groups to identify the style and intended audience for sample letters and e-mails about forgotten homework. Finally, each student writes both an e-mail and a letter about the same topic.

This activity uses literature and shared writing to teach letter-writing format and promote authentic letter writing. Students listen to and talk about stories dealing with correspondence before participating in a collaborative, whole-group letter-writing activity. They go on to write their own letters to deliver or mail to adult school helpers, family, or friends. Students often go on to write letters on their own time, which may generate ongoing correspondence.

Whether children and teens miss friends who've moved away or want to keep in touch with family while traveling, letter writing is the key to ongoing communication. Invite young adults to write letters to classmates, postcards from travels, and e-mails to family and friends. There are endless possibilities for this type of communication as described in this activity.

In this lesson, students discuss literature through a series of letter exchanges, in the form of handwritten letters, typed letters, electronic documents, e-mail, online discussion posts, and even Weblog posts. Students begin by exchanging letters that explore an issue or idea from a selected text. They discuss ways of writing open-ended letters that foster discussion, leaving room for responses to their letters, and keeping letters focused on a point. They then continue to exchange letters as they read the text, exchanging a minimum of three letters in a series.

What role does letter writing play in your classroom?

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December 7 is Letter Writing Day! Take a few minutes, and send someone a hand written letter. Then, invite your students to also write letters using these resources from ReadWriteThink.org. Tone, purpose, and audience. In this lesson, students compare an e-mail with a traditional letter.

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Not sure it is worth the subscription but it is one of the top apps in reviews.

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Storybird - Read, write, discover, and share the books you'll always remember.

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Become a better writer with Storybird's creativity tools. Online courses, challenges, and reader feedback will help you improve your writing.

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Check out the teacher guides for the books!

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The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Daytime Emmy-nominated, Storyline Online, features celebrated actors reading children's books to inspire a love of reading in millions of children worldwide.

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I love this blog for writing inspiration!

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A meeting place for a world of reflective writers.

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Publisher permission for virtual read-alouds

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Publisher permission for virtual read-alouds

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In an effort to help educators move to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic, children's publishers are changing their policies on copyright infringement.

SLJ will update this as publishers release information.

As educators move to remote learning, many are worrying and wondering about reading books aloud online and possibly violating copyright laws. In response, many children's publishers have temporarily altered policies.

Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins Children's Books, Macmillan, Little, Brown Young Readers, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, Chronicle Kids, Candlewick, Lee and Low, HMH, Abrams, Holiday House, Disney Publishing, Crabtree Publishing, Lerner, and Peachtree have put out guidelines for use during the coronavirus pandemic that has shut down schools across the country.

Please see the messages from each publisher below.
Disney Publishing Worldwide
With the increase in school closures, and many schools transitioning to remote learning, Disney Publishing Worldwide has received numerous requests from teachers across the country asking for permission to post readings of books online for their students to access. We support the efforts of educators and librarians who wish to provide remote learning at this time. Our permission is limited to Disney Press titles. If you are not sure which category a book falls into, please reach out to us at the following address: Dina.Sherman@Disney.com.

We ask that if you read a Disney Press book online for your students that you follow a few short guidelines:

Please note at the beginning of the video that you are reading with permission from Disney Publishing Worldwide, and please note the title of the book.

Please only post your video through your school's private platform or through another closed group or platform with limited access for your students only.

Please delete your video or disable access by June 30, 2020.

Please send an email to Dina.Sherman@Disney.com with your name, school, city, state, and the title and of the book(s) you read online with a link to your video.

By posting a reading, you are agreeing to abide by the above guidelines.

These terms are in effect until June 30, 2020.

Please note that other organizations interested in posting videos of your Disney Press title reading will need to contact Dina.Sherman@Disney.com who will evaluate their request.

Thank you for all you are doing.

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Publishers Adapt Policies To Help Educators

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In an effort to help educators move to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic, children's publishers are changing their policies on copyright infringement. SLJ will update this as publishers release information. As educators move to remote learning, many are worrying and wondering about reading books aloud online and possibly violating copyright laws.

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School librarian Laura Gardner offers best practices to stay connected with students and keep the fun factor high.

I never wanted to be an online librarian, and I bet you didn't, either. I don't even like ebooks.

I miss my library. I miss the books. Most importantly, I miss my students.

Now that COVID-19 has forced us all to become online school librarians, we need to find ways to deliver virtual content, stay connected with our students, and help them continue reading. One way that I'm doing that is through online book clubs via Zoom. Our two daily meetups are now an established part of my day.

Getting online book clubs off the ground wasn't too difficult for me. It helps that we already had established book clubs at my school library, but that isn't a prerequisite. I've been running three "Lunch Bunch" book clubs (one per grade) almost every day for over three years. We read aloud books from the Global Read Aloud or Project Lit book lists, and every Friday, I do First Chapter Friday to get more books in kids' hands. We cap our in-person Lunch Bunch at 30 students per group. We max out, and we have a wait list! But the online lunch bunch can include far more students, and there's no cleanup necessary at the end of the session.
Tips and Tricks for an Online Book Club Everyone is invited
I got the word out about our new virtual Lunch Bunch via email, social media, and Google Classroom. I first sent all our regular Lunch Bunch kiddos invitations to our new Google Classroom and encouraged them to get chatting with a welcome/introduce yourself post. Then I sent an email to every student in the school, as well as all the parent contacts, via our student management platform ( Aspen) and posted the event on the PTO Facebook page.

Most of one day was spent helping parents and students troubleshoot the Google Classroom codes and Zoom meeting code over email and Facebook. Parents and students also helped one another out and invited one another to join. A lot of our "regulars" sign up for our virtual meetings, as well as new students who never came to our in-person events. So far, we're averaging between 10 and 15 students per session, but I'm hopeful for more in the coming weeks.
Live meetings are a fun way to connect
We're using Zoom for our daily meetups, one for sixth graders at noon and one for seventh/eighth graders at 1 p.m. Zoom has been very easy to use: It works on any phone, tablet, or computer, and students have been helping each other troubleshoot. I love the functionality it offers the host. I can mute everyone and unmute one by one, and I can also record the meeting if I want to.

The first 10 minutes of our sessions are designated hang out time. We chat about the daily challenge (more on that later), as well as how everyone's feeling and what they're up to. I'm loving the social interaction, as well as seeing everyone's house, siblings, and pets. Our connection may be virtual, but it's still meaningful. My primary goal is to give students a sense of normalcy and routine in a time of uncertainty.

Read: 5 Podcasts on Kids & Tech Use Your Patrons Could Use Right Now
Asynchronous participation is important, too!
Not everyone will be able to make the live meetups. To keep kids engaged between our Zoom sessions, I'm posting a daily challenge in our Google Classroom. Examples include posting a picture of a student reading to a sibling, pet or plant; signing up for Sora, our ebook/audiobook platform; and finding a previously abandoned book in the house and reading 10 pages to give it one more chance. Google Classroom is also the best place for me to answer any questions about how to access library resources.
Give students choice
I've always read aloud to my middle schoolers. English language arts teachers in our school sometimes run book clubs where kids have physical copies of their own books, but that's not my preferred format. Given resource limitations, this may be a good time for you to try out a read aloud format, too. That said, I'm also a big proponent of student choice. We always have one set read aloud for the year, the Global Read Aloud pick. But for the rest of the year, students get to pick our read aloud from a list of choices that I booktalk. For our sixth grade virtual read aloud, we first finished up our previous book, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson, and then voted on Google Classroom to see what students wanted to read next from the selections I snagged from the library. We've settled onThe Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry for sixth grade and Small Spaces by Katherine Arden for seventh and eighth grade. So far both are going great!
Follow publisher rules
SLJ posted a great article about how to do this. Almost any book you will pick will be covered by one of the publishers listed. One quick email about each book and my read alouds are all set. I'm finding it easiest to read live and not record. We recap what has happened in the book at the start of each session by taking turns sharing what we remember, which helps increase participation, too.

I'm excited to see how our virtual book clubs evolve over time. I certainly miss seeing students in person, but given the situation, this is a nice consolation.
Laura Gardner is a teacher librarian at Dartmouth (MA) Middle School and a 2016 SLJ School Librarian of the Year finalist.

Read: Professional Development Opportunities from Home

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How To Run a Virtual Book Club with Middle Schoolers

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School librarian Laura Gardner offers best practices to stay connected with students and keep the fun factor high. I never wanted to be an online librarian, and I bet you didn't, either. I don't even like ebooks. I miss my library. I miss the books. Most importantly, I miss my students.