I’ve previously posted very positively about Google’s Read Along tool, which offers hundreds of read aloud books, questions that students can answer about them, and the ability to assess students’ reading ability when they, in turn, read the book back to the computer. You can check it out here.
The big problem, though, was for reasons beyond my understanding, our district couldn’t offer it for technical reasons that I assume were shared by other districts.
However, now that our district has gotten the Google Education package that you have to pay for, Read Along is now accessible to students. It’s an option in Google Classroom where you can assign stories.
I just have assigned a bunch of them at different reading levels, and students can use them right in Google Classroom. Unfortunately, Google Classroom only allows you to attach a maximum of eight stories to one post, so I periodically add new posts with stories in the “Beginning,” “Intermediate,” and “Advanced” levels though, of course, encourage students to try them all out.
Last month, when it went live, it didn’t work very well and took a very long time to load. I sent in a support ticked to our district tech staff and, though I don’t know what they did, it works fine now.
It’s like a more accessible Raz-Kids! And, unlike Raz Kids, I don’t have to pay for it!
I’ve previously posted very positively about Google’s Read Along tool, which offers hundreds of read aloud books, questions that students can answer about them, and the ability to assess students’ reading ability when they, in turn, read the book back to the computer. You can check it out here. The big problem, though, was for ESL Web Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
