Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): Extensive Reading Online Resources Recommendations

Thursday, February 09, 2023

Extensive Reading Online Resources Recommendations

(TESOL Materials----Extensive Reading, Learner Autonomy)

Worksheet: docs, pub

2nd Version: docs, pub

3rd Version (with links to my own materials removed): docs, pub

Explanation: In previous terms, I would parcel out my extensive reading recommendations on a day-by-day basis in conjunction with my extensive reading tracker--as shown in this post here. However, this term, for a variety of reasons, I've just decided to put all my recommendations on one Google Doc, and give everything to the students at the beginning of the term, rather than giving them one recommendation each day.

The recommendations that are the most useful for my students are undoubtedly the graded materials for English language learners. But unfortunately in the days when I was giving out daily recommendations, I just didn't know enough of those websites to fill out a whole term. (The terms were 5 days a week and 10 weeks long, so I was looking at about 50 daily recommendations.) So halfway through the term I would start just recommending general entertainment websites or general fiction online. For the moment, I've just kept all of my past recommendations on this document.

In creating this list, I've drawn on a lot of material that I've previously linked to off of this blog (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.) Also some of the written descriptions I lifted directly from my Extensive and Intensive Listening Recommendations document, and just changed "listen" to "read".

I ended up making 2 versions of this Google Doc because I wasn't sure if I wanted to include the read comics online websites (https://read-comic.com/ and https://readcomiconline.li/ ) I'm fairly sure they're harmless, but I'm not 100% sure, and in the end I decided I just didn't want to risk potentially recommending to my students websites that contained malware. So I made up one version with those websites on it, and then another version (the version I actually gave to my students) without those 2 websites.

Extensive Reading Online Recommendations

* Resources for English Language Learners

--Graded Materials for English Language Learners

--Authentic Materials for English Language Learners

* Comic Books Online

* Books and Stories Online

* News Websites

--Vietnamese News in English

* Entertainment News Websites

Resources for English Language Learners

Graded Materials for English Language Learners

--Breaking News English

--British Council Graded Reading

--Reading and Listening Practice

--Starfall

--Turtle Diary - Short stories for kids

Authentic Materials for English Language Learners

--American Stories for English Learners

--English Language Learning : Listen & Read

This website contains so much material that you can read--books, short stories, and articles. Everything has both the listening audio, and the reading text, so you can do it either as a reading or a listening or both.

Most of the material on this website is authentic material, which means that much of it will be difficult for English language learners. But generally speaking the children’s books will be easier than the books written for adults.

Children’s books

Charlotte’s Web

The easiest story I can think of on this site is Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, which you can find here. This is a classic children's story, first published in 1952, but still read to young children nowadays. When I was in school, my teacher read it to us when I was in 2nd grade (so I was 7 years old). So it's at about a 7 year old level for native speakers. For second language learners like you, I suspect there will be a lot of unknown vocabulary in this story, but you should still find the main idea of the story very easy to follow. It's a children's story, so the plot is simple, but it's not without its charms. There's a reason why it became a classic.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

This is another children's book, so it should hopefully be easy for you to read. I first had this book read to me when I was 5 or 6 years old, so for a native speaker I think it's about at the 6 year old level. For second language students like yourself, I think you should be able to follow the main idea easily, even if there will be some unknown vocabulary.

Because this is a very famous story, it's been made into a movie multiple times. At least two of the movie versions are available for free on Youtube. A 1979 cartoon version is on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/CP5uXoNf7Nc A 1988 live action version is on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/6Fft9DLIp7E If you're having trouble visualizing what is happening in the book, you may want to use one of the movies to help you follow the story. You can watch the movie before you read the book. Or you can watch the movie after you finish the book. Or you can watch the movie alongside the book (i.e. read some of the book, then watch some movie, then back to the book, etc). Whatever helps you more.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is another children's book. This one is pitched at slightly older kids (10-11). The vocabulary is slightly more advanced, and it also contains more slang terms and idioms. But on the plus side, each individual chapter is very short, so it's very easy to do this in short reading sessions. And in my experience, this book has been popular with students in Vietnam

Here are some other children’s books from this website

--Bridge to Terabithia

--Holes

--Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh

--Peter and the Starcatchers

--The Black Stallion

--The Hobbit:

--The Lightning Thief

--The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

--Where the Red Fern Grows

--Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

--Danny, the Champion of the World

--Mary Poppins

--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

And here are some of my favorite books for adults from that same website:

--Invasion of the Body Snatchers

--Animal Farm

--Lord of the Flies

--To Kill a Mockingbird

--And Then There Were None

Comic Books Online

--Comic Book Plus (Unlike a lot of other comic book websites, this one is completely legal. The reason is that all the comics hosted on this website are in the public domain.)

----Captain Marvel Adventures (This is probably the most famous Superhero comic on Comic Book Plus)

----Nightmare Comics (For students who like scary comics)

--Manga Plus (A student alerted me to this website. I’m told that it’s legal.)

--Read Full Comic (I don’t think this one is legal.)

--Read Comic Online (This website has got an amazing selection, but it’s not legal. I’ve used this website for years, and haven’t had a problem with it yet, but it does contain a number of pop-up ads. At some times the pop up ads have been for adult websites. Use with caution.)

--Classics Illustrated Online (These were taken down years ago, but still available on the Internet Archive. Internet Archive is perfectly safe to use.)

----A Tale of Two Cities

----Les Miserables

----Rip Van Winkle || The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

----Huckleberry Finn

----Oliver Twist

----Frankenstein

----Great Expectations

----20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

----David Copperfield

----Wuthering Heights

----The Prisoner of Zenda

----All Quiet on the Western Front