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Current events rewritten at three levels with audio recordings.

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English news and easy articles for students of English

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News in Levels « World News for Students of English

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We write news in three different levels of English. We want to help you understand English more. Now all students can enjoy reading and listening to news.

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A wide variety of everyday listening activities with pre- and post-listening quizzes.

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Boosting Your English Listening Skills

Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab has been providing online English listening comprehension activities for ESL and EFL learners since 1998. Visit Randall's other Web sites at DailyESL.com, EZslang.com, and Trainyouraccent.com for more language practice.

General ESL Listening Quizzes

Activities focus on everyday English comprehension skills at three levels based on content, voices, vocabulary, and natural speed. A combination of adult, teenage, and children's voices are included.

Explore More English Listening Activities

Randall has created a variety of other ESL listening activities to improve your comprehension, speaking, vocabulary, and cultural awareness.

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab - English Listening

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Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab helps ESL and EFL learners improve their English listening comprehension skills through conversations.

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Short animated talks with subtitles and questions.

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TED-Ed celebrates the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas.

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News stories in slower, clear English with audio and transcripts.

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Voice of America - Learn American English with VOA Learning English

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Learn American English with English language lessons from Voice of America. VOA Learning English helps you learn English with vocabulary, listening and comprehension lessons through daily news and interactive English learning activities.

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Short audio episodes on everyday and academic topics with scripts and vocabulary support.

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BBC Radio - Learning English News Review - Downloads

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Podcast downloads for Learning English News Review

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Legal Protections for Immigrant Students:A Guide for Educators

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Legal Protections for Immigrant Students:A Guide for Educators

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Slide Deck_ Know Your Educational Rights - MAS Unit

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Promoting a Safe and SecureLearning Environment for All

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Promoting a Safe and SecureLearning Environment for All

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Immigration Enforcement - What Can Educators Do?

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Immigration Enforcement - What Can Educators Do?

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Policy Analysis for California Education

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PACE - Immigration Enforcement—What Can Educators Do?

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California schools face potential disruption and destabilization related to increased immigration enforcement practices, with up to one in eight students, and/or their close family members, at risk of direct impacts. As schools increasingly face the possibility of becoming sites of immigration enforcement, many educators are working to understand how to support students and families who could be—or who already are—affected. This commentary suggests best practices educators can follow before and during any immigration enforcement event that affects a student or their family. The authors also

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Supporting Immigrant Students and Families Toolkit

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Supporting Immigrant Students and Families Toolkit

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Check out this Graph designed by Chon-In Ieng.

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Use this template to create your own academic talk card with sentence starters most applicable to your subject.

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This site has fun, digestible, and short articles that can be listened to, read, or watched with video clips. Lots of topics, across all content areas.

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Have you ever tasted an Arab taco?

When was the Arab taco invented?

What is shawarma?

Find it out

How are currency exchange rates determined?

What was the gold standard?

Which type of currency exchange rate system does the U.S. use?

Find it out
Which of the following is usually NOT a factor in determining currency exchange rates?

Test your knowledge

How can I use Wonderopolis?

What are the parts of a Wonder?

How do writers make a Wonder?

Find it out
Based on information from the Wonder, what was Lou Castro known for when he was alive?

Test your knowledge

What is an okapi?

Where do okapis live?

What do okapis eat?

Find it out

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Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease | Wonderopolis

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Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease

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Audio with text support and illustrations on a variety of math topics

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Visual Math Learning

Understanding Mathematics
through
Insight, Concept, and Perception

Visual Math Learning offers free math lessons featuring an interactive on-line tutorial for teaching elementary mathematics and basic arithmetic for grades K-12 at the pre-algebra level. It is an instructional aid for parents, teachers, and educators of primary, elementary, and middle school students, as well as a resource for lesson plans, homework help, and home schooling math lessons. The tutorial includes games, puzzles, interactive diagrams, and computer animated virtual manipulatives that emphasize active learning concepts by visualization.

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Visual Math Learning: A Free Online Tutorial for Teaching Math

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Visual Math Learning Understanding Mathematicsthrough Insight, Concept, and Perception Visual Math Learning offers free math lessons featuring an interactive on-line tutorial for teaching elementary mathematics and basic arithmetic for grades K-12 at the pre-algebra level.

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SDCOE Distance Learning Instructional Resources by Content Area

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SDCOE Distance Learning Instructional Resources by Content Area

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Please click the link below to view resources that have been curated for each discipline.

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Instructional Resources by Content Area

SDCOE content coordinators have developed a list of resources specific to subject matter to support distance learning. Please click the link below to view resources that have been curated for each discipline.

Explore distance learning video Library

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COVID-19 > Educators > Instructional Resources By Content Area

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SDCOE content coordinators have developed a list of resources specific to subject matter to support distance learning. Please click the link below to view resources that have been curated for each discipline. Explore distance learning video Library

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Audio recordings of young adult, MS and HS books

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Audio recordings of young adult, MS and HS books

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ESL English Language Learning - Adult Literacy - Listening & Reading - Audiobooks - Stories

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ESL English - Adult Literacy - Listening, Reading, Audiobooks, Short Stories, Songs, PET exam

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Edtech Tools for SPED, Math, and Reading

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Edtech Tools for SPED, Math, and Reading

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Extensive list of tools with mini-descriptions on how they can be used to support distance learning.

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Over the past two years, I have been blessed to partner with District 205 in Elmhurst, IL. I still vividly remember having lunch with Dave Moyer, the superintendent, where he explained in detail the vision that had been set for the district, centered around the six C's (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, character, citizenship). It was at this time that the decision was made for me to assist. The overall goal and focus of the partnership have been to help them get the most out of the devices that were rolled out a few years ago across the entire K-12 district as part of a 1:1 implementation. My role, like in many other similar districts across the country, has been to assist the teachers and administrators with digital pedagogy leading to purposeful use and efficacy using the framework below.

One of the best parts about job-embedded, on-going work with school districts is facilitating a variety of professional learning opportunities. They have utilized me as a keynoter, coach (leadership and teaching), and workshop presenter. Recently the district asked me to be a part of their professional development day, which consisted of seven different learning strands specific to the needs and interests of their teachers. During a planning call prior, I was asked to work with special education, math, and reading teachers in particular. To be honest, these groups are not in my traditional wheelhouse, but I saw it as a learning opportunity to branch out and expand my level of knowledge.

Prior to the day, I spent a great deal of time planning my slide deck and associated digital handouts. The overreaching goal for each session was to support instructional strategies aligned to rigor & relevance and the 6 C's with a focus on the purposeful use of technology. What resulted was a great resource that I plan to share below on specific edtech tools that can assist special education (SPED), math, and reading teachers.

With the SPED sessions, everything was tied into support and planning for the six approaches to co-teaching embraced by the district. I realized early on that I consistently see all of these in action regularly through my coaching work in schools across the country. I went deeper into the models from a pedagogical standpoint to help them better plan for instruction. This was then followed with strategies and tools for embedding tech that would assist with both differentiation of instruction and co-planning (virtually). Both the math and reading sessions focused on how edtech could be used during independent work, formative assessment, and pedagogically-sound blended learning.

Below you will see the specific tools I provided during each session. Some aren't new, but others might be.

* Denotes importing and syncing with Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology

So, what would you add to what I have curated? Please feel free to share your suggestions in the comments section below. As I facilitate future workshops, I will add more tools to this list that align with other content areas.

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Edtech Tools for SPED, Math, and Reading

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Over the past two years, I have been blessed to partner with District 205 in Elmhurst, IL. I still vividly remember having lunch with Dave Moyer, the superintendent, where he explained in detail the vision that had been set for the district, centered around the six C's (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, character, citizenship).

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If we missed any helpful resources along the way, please let us know and we'd be happy to add it to our list.

131+ Tools for Distance Learning

We've scoured the web for helpful apps, tools, and platforms to help you as you set up your distance learning environments during your school closures.

If we've found the organization has announced something confirming COVID-19 supports, we include the link within the description of the tool.

Full Curriculum Coverage Distance Learning Tools

Albert: Thousands of standards-aligned practice questions for grades 6-12. Curriculum coverage of ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, AP, SAT®, ACT®, Regents, STAAR, and Common Core needs. Click here to evaluate Albert for free.

ABCmouse: Reading, math, science, art & colors curriculum for ages 2-8. They offer a 30-day trial after you watch their video on their homepage.

BrainPOP: Over a 1,000 short animated movies for grades K-12 in all subjects, with quizzes and related materials. You can request free unlimited use of the BrainPOP suite for the duration of your school closure here.

CK-12: Free and customizable K-12 open educational resources that are aligned to state curriculum standards.

EducationCity: Targeted at grades PreK-6 providing lesson plans, resources and activities. 21-day free trial here.

Edulastic: Library of standards-aligned practice questions to create assessments in minutes. They're offering Premium and Enterprise features for free until July 1, 2020. Learn more here.

IXL: K-12 curriculum supports for math, language arts, science, stocial studies, spanish, and Common Core. Teachers can start a 30-day trial account here.

: 100% free covering a wide range of subjects. Particularly strong in STEM subjects.

MobyMax: Targeted towards K-8 teachers providing CCSS-aligned content, assessments, and activities. Free COVID-19 support announcement here.

Nearpod: Thousands of customizable lessons with student activities. Request support here.

PBS: Free K-12 classroom resources ranging from media galleries, videos, and lesson plans. Create a free account for full features.

Reading or English Language Arts Distance Learning Tools

Albert: Thousands of standards-aligned practice questions for grades 6-12. ELA content is high-interest, evidence-driven, with built-in differentiation. Click here to evaluate Albert for free.

Accelerated Reader: Reading quizzes on a variety of books. Requires subscription.

ActivelyLearn: Standards-aligned ELA, Science, and Social Studies for promoting students to stop and ask questions. COVID-19 offer here.

Book Creator: Lets you create digital books online. Fosters creativity in the classroom for telling stories and more. They're offering 90-days of free access you can start using here.

BoomWriter: For grades 2-8. Somewhat similar to Book Creator in that it allows students to create original stories that can be published into softcover books. But also allows teachers to send students engaging fiction and non-fiction and vocabulary exercises.

CommonLit: 100% free site that provides a digital lesson library, formative insights, and interim assessments. Features some Spanish materials as well.

Epic: Digital library for K-5. There are learning videos and quizzes within as well.

Learning Ally: Equitable access to a large library of "human-read" audiobooks, including, curriculum-aligned literature, fiction and nonfiction, and STEM textbooks.

MyOn: Digital library of 6,000 titles sorted by grade and Lexile reading level. Requires subscription.

Newsela: Leveled readings to build literacy skills. Most require a subscription.

ReadWorks: Free content, curriculum, and tools for grades K-12 targeted at building reading comprehension. You can read about their recommendations regarding using the site remotely here.

Starfall Reading: Targeted at K-3 for teaching basic English reading and writing skills. Lots of games and phonics. Some features require a subscription.

StoryKit: Simple free storybook creation app that allows students to add pictures and recordings with their own voices. Targeted at K-5.

ReadTheory: This is an online reading comprehension platform that is completely free for teachers.

Writing Distance Learning Tools

Albert: 100% free grammar course with over 3,300 original practice questions and explanations. Includes contemporary, informative and engaging texts and aligns to Common Core, Regents, and TEKS standards.

Draftin: Simple site that allows you to have students share drafts with easy version controls. Good for those who may not want to use Google Docs and wants to emphasize focus in writing. Has a free version.

Grammarly: Free browser extension or desktop tool that detects tone, typos, and helps build cleaner writing skills.

Hemingway: Similar to Grammarly, provides annotations to help make student writing bolder and more clear. Free.

Quill: Free writing and grammar activities for K-12. Includes lessons for teachers to lead writing instruction as well as diagnostics.

Scholastic Story Starters: Tool focused for K-6 to help students brainstorm ideas for writing a fictional story. Prompts for adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi are included.

Math Distance Learning Tools

Albert: Hundreds of free questions and explanations in Foundations of Algebra and Algebra 1. Aligned to Common Core, Regents, and TEKS standards. Albert is providing supports for impacted schools you can learn more about here.

Dad's Worksheets: This site provides printable worksheets, online calculators, games and puzzles for free. Targeted for K-6.

DeltaMath: Interactive math practice for middle and high school students. Accounts are free for teachers and students.

Desmos: Free online graphing calculator that includes digital activities for students from 6th to 12th grade. Teachers can create accounts to assign student activities.

Free Math App: A platform where teachers can assign, review, and leave feedback on student work.

FunexpectedApps: Targeted for kids 3-7 to develop mathematical thinking. They are offering a pack of free activities and a free desktop version of their app.

Geogebra: Online tools for graphing and geometry. Classroom resources and activities are free.

Illustrative Mathematics: Free math curriculum and resources for grades K-12 with a focus on creative word problems.

LegendsofLearning: 2,000 3rd through 8th-grade math and science games and simulations correlated to state standards. They are offering free access to all premium features for schools closed due to the outbreak for the duration of their closure.

Mathigon: An interactive math textbook where students can learn and practice new concepts. Targeted towards high school students.

Mathletics: An adaptive, interactive math platform centered on math challenges and quizzes that allow students to "compete" with one another. Schools and home users can try a 30-day free trial.

Mathsonline: A collection of math tutorial videos, questions, and summaries. Accounts are required, but students, teachers, and parents can get a free trial.

Mathspace: An adaptive mathematics platform including practice questions and interactive textbooks.

Myimaths: Math lessons and homework assignments for students ages 11 to 18. Schools can sign up for a 30-day free trial.

National Association for the Education of Young Children: Activities that parents and guardians can do with young children (elementary and below) at home.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Resources and activities for student exploration of mathematics.

SplashLearn: Game-based math learning program for grades K-5 available on iOS, Android, or Web. They're COVID-19 support announcement can be found here.

The Math Learning Center: Free games and activities for students in Pre-K through 6th grade.

VirtualNerd: Math video support in middle school, Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry.

Youcubed: Inspirational math tasks, films, and textbooks to help students develop a growth mindset.

Zearn: Digital lessons and printable activities aligned to EngageNY and Eureka Math. Resources are free and targeted towards grades K-5.

Language Learning Distance Learning Tools

Duolingo: 100% free language learning. Personalized with immediate grading and gamification. Optional paid subscription to remove ads and get offline access.

Fabulingua: Teaches Spanish through magical interactive stories on phones and tablets specifically for kids ages 2-10. FabuLingua is suspending their subscription services and providing their entire platform for free to those impacted.

FluentU: Language immersion through real-world videos. 14-day trial is available to sign up for.

Fluency Matters: Provides e-courses that include e-books, audiobooks, quizzes, and activities. Typically $3.50/student. They're offering extended 21-day trials. More information here.

justlearn: Here you can find a native tutor and online teacher to help you with language learning.

TeachVid: Allows you to create language learning content with interactive text reconstruction activities and quizzes

English Tools: Over 25 free tools for learning English language learners, including grammar tools, worksheet creation tools, and more.

Science Distance Learning Tools

Albert: Thousands of standards-aligned practice questions for grades 6-12. Science content is high-interest, evidence-driven, with built-in differentiation. Click here to evaluate Albert for free.

Discovery Education: Arguably best known for their science textbooks, but also support other STEM subjects. They are providing free access to their materials for the remainder of the school year. Learn more here.

Mystery Science: Interactive lessons targeted at K-5 science curriculum that are NGSS-aligned and Common Core aligned. They've made their most popular lessons free here.

STEMScopes: K-12 STEM curriculum with digital resources, print materials, and exploration kits. General information of how their online platform can support during this time can be found here.

Computer Science Distance Learning Tools

Codecademy: Free basic courses in computer science. Paid subscription optional; subscription unlocks members only content, study-plans, real-world projects and community support.

Minecraft Education Edition: Perfect for students to learn problem-solving - free lessons through June 30 with more details here.

Penjee: Free site that provides a supportive way to learn your first text-based programming language.

Tynker: Coding site targeted for ages 5+. Includes a complete coding curriculum, automatic assessments, and classroom management tools. Google form for COVID-19 supports can be submitted here.

Social Studies Distance Learning Tools

Library of Congress: Classroom materials and digital collections for teachers that align to CCSS as well as state standards. Sortable by Common Core, State Content, and Organizations.

National Constitution Center: Free online civics learning including the Interactive Constitution and Scholar Exchanges, live virtual interactive conversations about the Constitution.

Seterra: Geography games for students. Targeted primarily at grades K-5. Learn more about their free access announcement here.

Smithsonian Education: Features a Learning Lab that allows you to build collections and educational experiences for students. Also has a Game Center for younger STEM learners and an extensive library on AMerican history.

Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning Curriculum: Provides free lessons and assessments for students to evaluate online information. The Stanford History Education Group provides other history lessons for free here as well.

Teaching Tolerance: Site dedicated to providing free resources K-12 for creating civil and inclusive school communities. You can build a learning plan following their guide here.

Zinn Education Project: Targeted towards grades 6-12 built off Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Free downloadable lessons and articles you can use based on theme, time period and reading level.

Return to the Table of Contents
Music Learning Distance Learning Tools

Cyber Fret: Video based guitar lessons.

Metronome: Online metronome.

Moosiko: Online practice tool for guitar teachers to help their students learn chords, play songs, and track skills.

Ultimate Guitar: World's largest source of guitar tabs.

Online Guitar Tuner: Tune your guitar online.

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131 Tools for Distance Learning & Strategies for Student Engagement | Albert Resources

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Has your school closed? We put together a list of 100+ digital and online tools to support distance learning and remote classrooms here.

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A bilingual site for educators and families of English Learners

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A bilingual site for educators and families of English language learners

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Animated Educational Site for students - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology.

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BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts & Music, Health, and Technology

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Coronavirus links, resources & tools for teachers and Families

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With all of the school closings and extended spring breaks due to Coronavirus, I felt the need to organize some tools in one place (#justalittleOCD). I hope that these tools and resources are helpful as we navigate these waters to keep our students and families safe while keeping the learning going!

FYI- some of these are pictures and you may have to to type in the link to go to the website. Also, I may add more to this page periodically so feel free to refresh every now and then.

Viana Armstrong, M.Ed.

Ferris ISD Bilingual & ESL Coordinator

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With all of the school closings and extended spring breaks due to Coronavirus, I felt the need to organize some tools in one place (#justalittleOCD). I hope that these tools and resources are helpful as we navigate these waters to keep our students and families safe while keeping the learning going!

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HOME | —English Language Learning—

Listen & Read
Audiobooks for English Language Learners

MORE

I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson

The tale of the last human on an Earth overrun by the undead.

Robert Neville lives in his old family home, assaulted nightly by what were once his friends and neighbors who have become the walking dead. He, in turn, waits until the morning light and searches out their hiding places in order to destroy them when they are at their most vulnerable.

Then, in one of his travels he finds that there is another who is doing the same thing. He is not alone in the world after all.

This novel is where it all started. The pioneering work that later inspired every other tale of a normal human being fighting against the odds in a world gone mad with the hungry hordes of the undead.

"A thinking man's horror novel."

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DRY
by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

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MORE AUDIOBOOKS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS
Titles are in ALPHABETICAL order.
Click on a title to see information about the book

1984
by George Orwell

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Cell
by Stephen King

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Slam
by Nick Hornby

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Split
by Swati Avasthi

SS-GB
by Len Deighton

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The audio and text presented here is formatted for the exclusive and non-profit purpose of teaching English as a Second
or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL), also called English Language Learning (ELL)

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"ESL English Listening and Reading Audiobooks"

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Robert Neville lives in his old family home, assaulted nightly by what were once his friends and neighbors who have become the walking dead. He, in turn, waits until the morning light and searches out their hiding places in order to destroy them when they are at their most vulnerable.

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ELPAC Accessibility Resources

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Resources and presentations for ELs with IEPs

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SELPA > Resources for Teachers and Staff > English Learners > Presentations

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Nearpod encourages students to participate in lessons that contain virtual reality, 3D objects, PhET simulations and so much more. Interactive software features include activities like open ended questions, polls, quizzes, collaborative boards, gamified activities and more!

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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Created by Ms. Anaya

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Understood--resources to understand and support students with disabilities 

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Understood--resources to understand and support students with disabilities 

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Copyright © 2014-2020 Understood For All Inc. All rights reserved. "Understood" and related logos are trademarks of Understood For All Inc. and are used with permission. This website provides information of a general nature and is designed for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice. Understood is a nonprofit initiative. Understood does not and will not take money from pharmaceutical companies. We do not market to or offer services to individuals in the European Union. For more information, please review the Terms and Conditions.

"Understood" as used above includes Understood For All Inc., and their officers, affiliates, parents, and related entities, and their respective employees, contractors, or other personnel.

Understood For All Inc.
145 Hudson Street, Suite 5B
New York, NY 10013-2150
Media inquiries: media@understood.org (preferred) or (516) 654-7584

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Copyright © 2014-2020 Understood For All Inc. All rights reserved. "Understood" and related logos are trademarks of Understood For All Inc. and are used with permission. This website provides information of a general nature and is designed for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice.

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Flipgrid is a social learning platform that allows educators to ask a question, then the students respond in a video. Students are then able to respond to one another, creating a “web” of discussion.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Best Practices for Using Digital Assessment with English Language Learners

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Best Practices for Using Digital Assessment with English Language Learners

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Teachers and admins love Edulastic because it makes

Formatives

Distance Learning

Interims

Benchmarks

Diagnostics

Remediation

Math practice

Science assessment

Distance Learning

Data analysis

Progress monitoring

State test prep

Tracking growth

easy.
Assess at school. Reinforce at home.

Use all of your data to track learning and growth.

Quickly identify learning gaps with diagnostic and formative assessments

Give students differentiated assignments to remediate, reinforce or challenge

Monitor progress towards standards mastery to ensure students stay on track

Engaging technology-enhanced assessments for benchmarks, the classroom, or distance learning

Easily administer district common or classroom formative assessments using high-quality item banks, diagnostic or curriculum-aligned assessments, create your own questions or mix and match.

80,000+ standards-aligned questions from trusted sources

Try one of our 10K free pre-built assessments

Keep students learning at home when school is closed or limited.

Create self-paced lessons by embedding video, links and articles. Check for understanding with quiz questions and watch student engagement soar.

Propel each student with personalized, data-driven recommendations

Fill learning gaps with practice for struggling students and challenge advanced students to move ahead.

Bring all of your key performance data together in one place - from engagement with online learning to discipline to diagnostics to state test scores - along with your classroom assessments and district benchmarks for a holistic view of each student, or of the whole district.

Integrates seamlessly with the technology you already use

Easy sign on through Google, MS365 or Clever. Sync class rosters and share assignments in Google Classroom or your LMS system and push grades back to your gradebook.

" We love the relationship we have with the people behind Edulastic. It's really easy to get in touch. We get the answers we need in a timely fashion, and it seems really clear that the team cares about whether or not their product is working for us. "

Easy enough to learn on your own, but you don't have to

From basic how-tos to advanced assessment creation, we've got you covered with online training, how-to videos and articles, and self-paced courses for all levels and roles.

See how Edulastic can make a difference at your school

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Edulastic: Interactive Formative Assessment for classroom or distant learning

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Online assessment tools with technology-enhanced items, help students learn and measure growth all in one easy system in the classroom and at home.

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Article: What is a Specific Math Disability?

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Article: What is a Specific Math Disability?

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What is a specific mathematics disability?

You may hear the terms "specific math disability," "specific learning disability in math" or " dyscalculia." These terms all refer to a type of disorder that significantly impacts a person's ability to learn and perform in math.

There is no single profile of this disability. The signs of dyscalculia will vary from person to person. And they will affect people differently at different times in their lives.

Some people with dyscalculia have no trouble memorizing basic math facts. It's performing calculations and solving problems that cause trouble. Others struggle with calculation and basic math operations like multiplication and division. But they can grasp the big concepts and easily understand how a problem can be solved.

Disabilities in math are often missed in the early years because kids are learning many basic skills through memorization. Young kids with dyslexia can often memorize their ABCs. But they might not understand the complex relationship between letters and sounds. Similarly, kids with dyscalculia may be able to memorize and recite their 1-2-3s. But they may not be building the " number sense " that is essential to future math learning.

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What Is a Specific Mathematics Disability?

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What is a specific mathematics disability? You may hear the terms "specific math disability," "specific learning disability in math" or " dyscalculia." These terms all refer to a type of disorder that significantly impacts a person's ability to learn and perform in math. There is no single profile of this disability.

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Why Khan Academy works

Personalized learning

Students practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then accelerating their learning.

Trusted content

Created by experts, Khan Academy's library of trusted, standards-aligned practice and lessons covers math K-12 through early college, grammar, science, history, AP®, SAT®, and more. It's all free for learners and teachers.

Tools to empower teachers

With Khan Academy, teachers can identify gaps in their students' understanding, tailor instruction, and meet the needs of every student.

DISTRICTS

Khan Academy boosts
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In a recent study, students were over twice as likely to meet grade-level standards with Khan Academy. Districts across the country are partnering with us to ensure all their students succeed.

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"I'm finally able to truly differentiate my classroom. This has been priceless for my students' engagement."

DUSTIN FAUTH / 4th grade teacher / Falmouth, MA

We empower teachers to support their entire classroom. 90% of US teachers who have used Khan Academy have found us effective.

LEARNERS AND STUDENTS

You can learn anything.

Build a deep, rock-solid understanding in math, grammar, science, history, SAT®, AP®, and more.

"I come from a poor family. At home it's one room, just a room we live in. When I was a child, I used to fear mathematics. But now, I am in love with mathematics because of Khan Academy."

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Every child deserves the chance to learn.

Across the globe, 617 million children are missing basic math and reading skills. We're a nonprofit delivering the education they need, and we need your help. You can change the course of a child's life.

Key supporters

Supporters of our COVID-19 response

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Khan Academy | Free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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Flippity allows teachers to turn any Google spreadsheet into flash cards, a badge creator, a spelling quiz, a memory game, a word search, and more.

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Flippity.net: Flashcards and Other Resources for Educators and Learners

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Create an interactive virtual breakout activity.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

Come back for more.
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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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A Tool to Scaffold Instruction for English Learners

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A Tool to Scaffold Instruction for English Learners

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This PDF document embeds links to various strategies. Simply click on the links on the document.

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Seesaw | Elementary Learning Experience Platform

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Elementary Learning Experience Platform | Seesaw

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Seesaw is a Learning Experience Platform with 25M+ users, enhancing elementary education, engagement, and school culture while improving academic success.

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Classcraft - engaging class management for older students 

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Classcraft - engaging class management for older students 

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HMH Classcraft pairs ELA and math content with research-based lesson plans resulting in reduced educator planning time and increased student engagement.

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Free Rice - vocabulary games for students

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Free Rice - vocabulary games for students

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Meet Freerice

Freerice is an educational trivia game that helps you get smarter while making a difference for people around the world. Every question you answer correctly raises 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world.

Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world. Let's work together to fill everyone's plate.

Our Impact

Playing Freerice sends an important message: community matters, and only by coming together can we help solve global problems like food insecurity and poverty. By using your knowledge to do good, you're advocating for positive change and supporting our mission to achieve a world of Zero Hunger. Whether you are playing Freerice at school or learning about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, you are paving the path for brighter futures ahead through nutritious.

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Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world.

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Bouncy Balls - visual representation of sound levels

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Bouncy Balls - visual representation of sound levels

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Bouncy Balls – Manage classroom noise with bouncing balls!

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A free classroom noise level meter, monitor and management tool. Perfect if your school kids are too noisy! Bouncing balls react to sounds from the microphone.

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Social Studies, ELA, Math, Science

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Grade 9 - 12

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Words are translated in Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese.

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Rewordify is powerful, free, online software that improves reading and learning. This site allows students to simplify difficult English, for faster comprehension and effectively learn the difficult words, for building a better vocabulary.

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Rewordify.com | Understand what you read

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Rewordify.com helps you read more, understand better, learn new words, and teach more effectively.

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Above the Noise--weekly videos exploring controversial topics for teens 

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Above the Noise--weekly videos exploring controversial topics for teens 

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Above the Noise , a YouTube series for teens, cuts through the hype and dives deep into the research behind the issues affecting their daily lives. The series investigates controversial subject matter to help young viewers draw their own informed conclusions while inspiring media literacy and civic engagement. FOR EDUCATORS: Join us on PBS Learning Media where you'll find standards-aligned free lesson plans, viewing guides, transcripts, and more for each episode. Learn more about ourpartnerships and funders.

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Above the Noise , a YouTube series for teens, cuts through the hype and dives deep into the research behind the issues affecting their daily lives. The series investigates controversial subject matter to help young viewers draw their own informed conclusions while inspiring media literacy and civic engagement.

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KQED Education--Lessons, videos, and connections to current events 

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KQED Education--Lessons, videos, and connections to current events 

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Free media literacy hub for educators and students. Find professional development courses, classroom resources and unique tools that allow students to practice critical thinking, media making and civil discourse. Provided by the nonprofit, public media station KQED.

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Plickers is an assessment tool that allows teachers to collect on-the-spot formative assessment data without the need to have students use devices or paper and pencil.

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Formative assessment has never been faster.

Plickers is the free card activity your students will love.

Join millions and play in your next lesson.
Sign up for free
Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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Formative assessment has never been faster. Plickers is the free card activity your students will love. Join millions and play in your next lesson. Sign up for free Used by K-12 teachers in over 100 countries

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NoRedInk is an online tool used for teaching grammar, usage, mechanics and style to students in 4th through 12th grade. Teachers can assign a variety of diagnostic and instructional materials to their students through NoRedInk.

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This document describes 20 most common instructional strategies and additional resources that support oral academic conversation in the secondary classroom.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Write About - visual prompts for writing

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Write About - visual prompts for writing

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Write About is a classroom writing community and publishing platform built by teachers.

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Help Your Students With

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Purposefully choose an audience and curate content.

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Comment and receive feedback in a moderated social environment.

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Over 37 million words inspired so far.
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Write Across the Curriculum

Looks interesting, but not sure where to start?

We're happy to walk you through getting Write About set up in your classroom.

Contact a teacher ambassador

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Classroom writing community and publishing platform built by teachers.

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Ed Puzzle - embed any video with questions

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Ed Puzzle - embed any video with questions

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Easily create beautiful interactive video lessons for your students you can integrate right into your LMS. Track students' progress with hassle-free analytics as you flip your classroom!

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Science and SS texts in multiple lexile levels with lessons for the classroom

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RocketLit ~ Standards Aligned Differentiated Science and History Articles

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RocketLit serves differentiated, standards-based science and history readings to students to save time lesson planning for teachers. Our leveled science and history articles allow all learners in a classroom to improve literacy by reading at their independent reading level, and learn core concepts…

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Other TeachersFirst Special Topics Collections These educator-reviewed resources from TeachersFirst offer audio books so all students, including emerging readers and ESL/ELL learners, can experience literature and other reading selections in audio form to reinforce and inspire literacy skills and enjoyment. Be sure to explore each site, as many include multiple categories of books and different download or listening formats.

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LibriVox | free public domain audiobooks

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LibriVox is turning 18, and we've just got another year older better! In the last year, our volunteers have created over 1200 new audiobooks, so let's celebrate our anniversary with 10 of the latest gems from our catalog. The most exciting thing of last year was the addition of another language to our catalog: Indonesian.

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This site offers several "levels" of the same newspaper article for free.

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English news and easy articles for students of English

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News in Levels « World News for Students of English

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We write news in three different levels of English. We want to help you understand English more. Now all students can enjoy reading and listening to news.

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that brings together engaging, accessible content with integrated assessments and insights to supercharge reading engagement and learning in every subject. Content on Newsela covers topics students care about, that connect to core curriculum, and are aligned to standards.

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Essaypop is an interactive, cloud-based writing platform that allows students to compose great essays on their phones, tablets or computers.

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Writing essays is hard. We make it easy.

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The Newcomer Tool Kit is designed to help U.S. educators; elementary and secondary teachers, principals, and other school staff who work directly with immigrant students—including asylees and refugees—and their families. The Newcomer Tool Kit has 5 chapters, and contains an overview, sample tools, and resources.

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Listen a minute has short one-minute audios on various topics. Activities are included with all topics. Download the audio as an MP3 file, so it can be listened to without viewing the text along with it. If you like one of the activities, you can download a PDF of it to print and/or copy/paste it to a Google Doc for students to complete after the listening.

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Russell Stannard (Teacher Training Videos)

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Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified and/or student activities that can be downloaded.

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Search for a podcast that contains the topics/content you are wanting students to hear. Play it for your class.

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The iTunes Store puts hundreds of thousands of free podcasts at your fingertips. If you have an iPad or iPhone, you can download the iTunes U app that is specifically curated with educational content.

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Listenwise is an award-winning listening skills platform. It harnesses the power of listening to advance literacy and learning in all students. Their collection of podcasts and public radio keeps teaching connected to the real world and builds student listening skills at the same time.