Elementary Literacy with iPad - Free iBook
Learn how other teachers have taught literacy with iPad, and how you can integrate a variety of content for iPad into your own literacy classrooms. You'll find examples of literacy lessons that can complement your instruction and help you understand how to use different types of content for iPad together. And you'll explore curated literacy collections to help you discover apps, books, and iTunes U materials to build your own literacy lessons.
Learn how other teachers have taught literacy with iPad, and how you can integrate a variety of content for iPad into your own literacy classrooms. You'll find examples of literacy lessons that can complement your instruction and help you understand how to use different types of content for iPad together. And you'll explore curated literacy collections to help you discover apps, books, and iTunes U materials to build your own literacy lessons.
Reading Tools
Subtext iPad app The list of the things that you can do with Subtext is quite impressive, but the basic purpose is to provide a place for teachers and students to have digital book discussion. video Using Subtext you can read ebooks, annotate ebooks, create quizzes about ebooks, and write blog posts about the ebooks you read. You can create private and public book discussion groups and build bookshelves for your groups. To add books to your Subtext bookshelves you can pull from Google Books (many free ebooks are available that way), buy ebooks from Subtext (volume pricing is available), or upload your own titles (directions here). To annotate a section of a book just highlight it then choose what you want to do with it. The text that you highlight can be annotated with your messages, you can assign a quiz question to that text, or label that section as a literary element like "personification" or "foreshadowing." Use for Lit Circles
Book Wizard Mobile is a Scholastic service that allows you to create and organize book lists according to reading levels and students’ interests. Book Wizard Mobile is a free iPad and iPhone app that you can use to scan a book’s barcode to quickly discover its lexile measurement, grade level equivalent, and guided reading level. Within the app you can create book lists and edit the existing book lists that you have created in your Scholastic.com teacher profile.
Reading Racer easy-to-use app that uses the mobile device's microphone to "listen" as a student speaks the words on the screen. Reading Racer is designed for kids ages 5-8 and uses speech recognition as the user speaks the words/sentences as fast as they can. The way this works is the student presses the microphone button and holds it down while speaking the word. The words highlight as they are read and calculating how many in a row are read. If a user takes their finger off the microphone the word is then read to help them along.
Books Starring Characters of Color We Read Too is a free iOS app that allows users to tap into hundreds of books for youth in elementary through high school, starring characters of color written by authors of color. Users of the app can view the selections by title, author, or genre
Class Stories is a literacy resource for primary school teachers. Just by entering your students' names, you can generate exciting narratives where your students are the stars! Whether battling vampire teachers or surviving disastrous school excursions, these stories may engage your students. Each class story comes with printable comprehension questions and writing tasks. Your whole literacy block is taken care of! A perfect tool to engage reluctant readers and writers.
ThinkFluency free iOS app that lets teachers assess a student's Reading fluency in real-time. All a educator has to do after creating a account, is add students/classes, select a Reading passage or create your own, and then begin the assessment. ThinkFluency makes it super easy for the teacher to track errors by tapping a button on the screen while the student is reading. Once this is done ThinkFluency will generate a detailed report and develop a individualized instruction.
Newsela iPad app and iPhone app delivers current news articles to students. The stories are matched to students' reading abilities. At the end of each article students can take quizzes to check their understanding of what they read. Should students find that the articles are too easy for them, they can quickly select a more challenging reading level.
Gaming App to Improve Literacy An app to transform literacy skills with engaging, puzzle-solving gameplay. Called Enigma: The Lost Words of Atlantis, the Android app was created to develop adult literacy, but it can also be used by younger struggling readers. As they play the game, students are adventurers who travel around the world experiencing new cultures and history. In each location they visit, they must uncover the secrets of Atlantis through artifacts and relics that they use to decode the cryptic language of Atlantean into English.
The NaturalReader text-to-speech(TTS) application converts PDF files, MS Word documents, and e-books into spoken words. You can have any text read to you in one of over 18 natural-sounding voices.(offline voices) It is also an efficient proofreading tool; it not only picks out mistakes in your work, but gives you a good sense of the natural flow of what you have written.Moreover, NaturalReader is a great help to students with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. By listening to text rather reading, students are better able to comprehend reading materials or detect spelling errors in their own work.
Finally, NaturalReader is a great tool with which to learn a foreign language. You can practice your comprehension and pronunciation skills by listening to any written words being spoken at your preferred speed.
TapStory for young learners that is ideal for digital storytelling. The way this works is a student reads a storybook on the iPad while animating the characters/objects by moving them across the screen w/ their finger while it records. Then they can play back the story for others and even add text for a caption. Students can even create their very own stories from scratch using existing clipart.
FluencyFinder - assesses student's reading fluency. This is a very simple app to use and get instant real-time results for assessing student's reading fluency.
Google Translate app is an application for those who like traveling. Just point your camera at the text you need to translate, and the app will instantly translate it into the language of your choice. It’s a very useful thing!
Caribu connects two readers from down street or across the world so they can explore a picture book together. Users will be able to see each other’s picture just like FaceTime as they turn the pages of a book on their screen. It can be used in a school environment to connect readers to partners in a neighboring school or to students in another time zone. Caribu comes with a couple free books and the rest are for a fee
Reading Pro by Hooked on Phonics Loaded with videos, games and stories, Reading Pro teaches 7 to 10-year-olds strategies for learning new words, and lets them practice reading them in the real world. The app will turn beginning and struggling readers into confident, fluent readers.’
One Minute Reader features interesting, nonfiction stories, packed with fascinating information. This engaging content taps into students' curiosity, so they want to find out more…One Minute Reader includes audio-supported definitions for selected vocabulary words in the stories, which helps readers learn the meanings and pronunciations of words they may find challenging…A quiz step asks questions about the story to make sure students think about what the story is about and the ideas in it. The questions focus on identifying the main idea, attending to details, vocabulary, and making connections in the text.’
Read Me Stories: Learn to Read for beginning readers. Tailored reading experience, starting at their current reading level, learning at their own pace, and graduating an awesome and confident little reader! It’s a positive introduction to reading and will nurture their education development.
Character (Every) Day Mobile App the app includes over 5,000 curated resources to help develop character strengths -- like empathy, courage, humor, self-control, perseverance, and many more. You can filter the materials by specific character strength, age appropriateness, and type of resource. You can also save and share lists, such as articles to read on your commute, books to read on vacation, or films to watch with the family. Download for iPhone Download for Android
TowerStorm The game takes place in a multiplayer 3D virtual world. Players can create their avatar and unlock special power ups as they immerse themselves in a fun 3D world while solving problems in Math/Literacy aligned to Common Core Standards. The game tracks a players score and generates detail reports as well as lets a player customize and select what problems they want to encounter (i.e. Algebra, Vocabulary, etc.). Also, TowerStorm has high replay value as each game lasts only 5 minutes.
Monkey Junior a comprehensive reading program for kids to learn to read with thousands of well-structured lessons in different levels and in multiple languages. Each lesson lasts from 7 to 10 minutes. Monkey Junior adopts the whole word approach (i.e sight words) proposed by famous early education researchers such as Makato Shichida and Glenn Doman as well as traditional phonics approach. The curriculum is divided into three different reading levels: easy, medium and advanced, guiding your little readers to learn from individual sight words and phrases.
Phonics: Fun on Farm 12 rigorous educational games! Our new Phonics: Fun on Farm app with its systematic phonics method of reading instruction uses the best practices for teaching reading. In this comprehensive package for beginning readers, we cover essential reading sub-skills including phoneme recognition, letter-sound relationships, letter writing, blending sounds to form words, spelling, and reading words and simple sentences.’
Kindoma Storytime. This partner-reading app connects two people through the wireless internet connection on their tablet. Sharing a view of the same book, users can watch the pages turn together, see each other's face, and hear the voice of their friend all at the same time.
The Opposites learn pairs of words with the opposite meanings
Bluster It is set up for independent and partner practice and prompts the player to choose between Practice skills like: rhyming words, prefixes and suffixes, synonyms, word roots, homophones, and adjectives
Blio: offers all the same features of any basic e-reader, and also a few things that make it unique. Through synchronized highlighting and a serial presentation view, the app helps those with reading disabilities make sense of the text, something many other similar apps don't offer.
Just 2 Words students solve for a two word phrase that matches a set of pictures. With different degrees of challenges
Sentence Reading Magic This app provides the missing link between reading words and reading books-reading sentences. Most reading programs go from reading words to reading books, which is a big gap. This app helps to bridge that gap giving emerging readers a gradual and fun step up from reading words.
Penguin Leveled Reader for young readers. Students can listen to narration, read along, and manipulate the story. This app comes with one free text from each of the four levels offered
Shout Science is an interactive book that tells stories behind science discoveries. Students can scroll through a timeline and read about famous scientists.
Book Wizard Mobile is a Scholastic service that allows you to create and organize book lists according to reading levels and students’ interests. Book Wizard Mobile is a free iPad and iPhone app that you can use to scan a book’s barcode to quickly discover its lexile measurement, grade level equivalent, and guided reading level. Within the app you can create book lists and edit the existing book lists that you have created in your Scholastic.com teacher profile.
Reading Racer easy-to-use app that uses the mobile device's microphone to "listen" as a student speaks the words on the screen. Reading Racer is designed for kids ages 5-8 and uses speech recognition as the user speaks the words/sentences as fast as they can. The way this works is the student presses the microphone button and holds it down while speaking the word. The words highlight as they are read and calculating how many in a row are read. If a user takes their finger off the microphone the word is then read to help them along.
Books Starring Characters of Color We Read Too is a free iOS app that allows users to tap into hundreds of books for youth in elementary through high school, starring characters of color written by authors of color. Users of the app can view the selections by title, author, or genre
Class Stories is a literacy resource for primary school teachers. Just by entering your students' names, you can generate exciting narratives where your students are the stars! Whether battling vampire teachers or surviving disastrous school excursions, these stories may engage your students. Each class story comes with printable comprehension questions and writing tasks. Your whole literacy block is taken care of! A perfect tool to engage reluctant readers and writers.
ThinkFluency free iOS app that lets teachers assess a student's Reading fluency in real-time. All a educator has to do after creating a account, is add students/classes, select a Reading passage or create your own, and then begin the assessment. ThinkFluency makes it super easy for the teacher to track errors by tapping a button on the screen while the student is reading. Once this is done ThinkFluency will generate a detailed report and develop a individualized instruction.
Newsela iPad app and iPhone app delivers current news articles to students. The stories are matched to students' reading abilities. At the end of each article students can take quizzes to check their understanding of what they read. Should students find that the articles are too easy for them, they can quickly select a more challenging reading level.
Gaming App to Improve Literacy An app to transform literacy skills with engaging, puzzle-solving gameplay. Called Enigma: The Lost Words of Atlantis, the Android app was created to develop adult literacy, but it can also be used by younger struggling readers. As they play the game, students are adventurers who travel around the world experiencing new cultures and history. In each location they visit, they must uncover the secrets of Atlantis through artifacts and relics that they use to decode the cryptic language of Atlantean into English.
The NaturalReader text-to-speech(TTS) application converts PDF files, MS Word documents, and e-books into spoken words. You can have any text read to you in one of over 18 natural-sounding voices.(offline voices) It is also an efficient proofreading tool; it not only picks out mistakes in your work, but gives you a good sense of the natural flow of what you have written.Moreover, NaturalReader is a great help to students with dyslexia or other learning difficulties. By listening to text rather reading, students are better able to comprehend reading materials or detect spelling errors in their own work.
Finally, NaturalReader is a great tool with which to learn a foreign language. You can practice your comprehension and pronunciation skills by listening to any written words being spoken at your preferred speed.
TapStory for young learners that is ideal for digital storytelling. The way this works is a student reads a storybook on the iPad while animating the characters/objects by moving them across the screen w/ their finger while it records. Then they can play back the story for others and even add text for a caption. Students can even create their very own stories from scratch using existing clipart.
FluencyFinder - assesses student's reading fluency. This is a very simple app to use and get instant real-time results for assessing student's reading fluency.
Google Translate app is an application for those who like traveling. Just point your camera at the text you need to translate, and the app will instantly translate it into the language of your choice. It’s a very useful thing!
Caribu connects two readers from down street or across the world so they can explore a picture book together. Users will be able to see each other’s picture just like FaceTime as they turn the pages of a book on their screen. It can be used in a school environment to connect readers to partners in a neighboring school or to students in another time zone. Caribu comes with a couple free books and the rest are for a fee
Reading Pro by Hooked on Phonics Loaded with videos, games and stories, Reading Pro teaches 7 to 10-year-olds strategies for learning new words, and lets them practice reading them in the real world. The app will turn beginning and struggling readers into confident, fluent readers.’
One Minute Reader features interesting, nonfiction stories, packed with fascinating information. This engaging content taps into students' curiosity, so they want to find out more…One Minute Reader includes audio-supported definitions for selected vocabulary words in the stories, which helps readers learn the meanings and pronunciations of words they may find challenging…A quiz step asks questions about the story to make sure students think about what the story is about and the ideas in it. The questions focus on identifying the main idea, attending to details, vocabulary, and making connections in the text.’
Read Me Stories: Learn to Read for beginning readers. Tailored reading experience, starting at their current reading level, learning at their own pace, and graduating an awesome and confident little reader! It’s a positive introduction to reading and will nurture their education development.
Character (Every) Day Mobile App the app includes over 5,000 curated resources to help develop character strengths -- like empathy, courage, humor, self-control, perseverance, and many more. You can filter the materials by specific character strength, age appropriateness, and type of resource. You can also save and share lists, such as articles to read on your commute, books to read on vacation, or films to watch with the family. Download for iPhone Download for Android
TowerStorm The game takes place in a multiplayer 3D virtual world. Players can create their avatar and unlock special power ups as they immerse themselves in a fun 3D world while solving problems in Math/Literacy aligned to Common Core Standards. The game tracks a players score and generates detail reports as well as lets a player customize and select what problems they want to encounter (i.e. Algebra, Vocabulary, etc.). Also, TowerStorm has high replay value as each game lasts only 5 minutes.
Monkey Junior a comprehensive reading program for kids to learn to read with thousands of well-structured lessons in different levels and in multiple languages. Each lesson lasts from 7 to 10 minutes. Monkey Junior adopts the whole word approach (i.e sight words) proposed by famous early education researchers such as Makato Shichida and Glenn Doman as well as traditional phonics approach. The curriculum is divided into three different reading levels: easy, medium and advanced, guiding your little readers to learn from individual sight words and phrases.
Phonics: Fun on Farm 12 rigorous educational games! Our new Phonics: Fun on Farm app with its systematic phonics method of reading instruction uses the best practices for teaching reading. In this comprehensive package for beginning readers, we cover essential reading sub-skills including phoneme recognition, letter-sound relationships, letter writing, blending sounds to form words, spelling, and reading words and simple sentences.’
Kindoma Storytime. This partner-reading app connects two people through the wireless internet connection on their tablet. Sharing a view of the same book, users can watch the pages turn together, see each other's face, and hear the voice of their friend all at the same time.
The Opposites learn pairs of words with the opposite meanings
Bluster It is set up for independent and partner practice and prompts the player to choose between Practice skills like: rhyming words, prefixes and suffixes, synonyms, word roots, homophones, and adjectives
Blio: offers all the same features of any basic e-reader, and also a few things that make it unique. Through synchronized highlighting and a serial presentation view, the app helps those with reading disabilities make sense of the text, something many other similar apps don't offer.
Just 2 Words students solve for a two word phrase that matches a set of pictures. With different degrees of challenges
Sentence Reading Magic This app provides the missing link between reading words and reading books-reading sentences. Most reading programs go from reading words to reading books, which is a big gap. This app helps to bridge that gap giving emerging readers a gradual and fun step up from reading words.
Penguin Leveled Reader for young readers. Students can listen to narration, read along, and manipulate the story. This app comes with one free text from each of the four levels offered
Shout Science is an interactive book that tells stories behind science discoveries. Students can scroll through a timeline and read about famous scientists.
eBooks
Dr. Seuss Treasury is a very good iPad app that provides access to over 50 of the best Dr. Seuss classic books. These works have been particularly adapted for iPad and provides an interactive and delightful reading experience. The app also includes tracking features to enable parents and teachers to monitor kids' reading progress
Rivet Google's free reading app has 2,000 free e-books, and numerous features, including reading the words aloud and having students record what they hear – with artificial intelligence then assessing its accuracy. Teachers can create virtual classrooms and, I assume, monitor student progress (the ability to view student reading histories is not appear to be explicitly spelled out in the teacher’s guide, but I assume that’s the case). The app can be downloaded on Android and IOS devices, and on Chromebooks.
Novel Effect iPad app brings stories to life, promotes literacy, sparks imagination, and provides enjoyment for children aged 12 and under. The app follows the voice of users as they read aloud from children’s storybooks, and responds at just the right moment with music, sounds, and character voices.
Epic! for educators. Students have instant access to 1,000 of books. I have created a list of favorites since it may be overwhelming with all the book choices. The books are arranged on bookshelves according to genres and recommendations. Teachers can set up to 36 individual profiles for students based on reading levels, interests, and personal recommendations. Epic has recently added engaging educational videos covering different curriculum areas.
Zing is a service offering thousands of free fiction and non-fiction ebooks to teachers and students. On Zing you can browse for books by topic, language, or reading level. You can read the books in your web browser on a laptop or tablet. Zing is more than just a repository of free ebooks. In the Zing reader students will find a built-in dictionary and tools for taking notes while they read. video
PBS Students K - 12 designed for students and teachers created by PBS LearningMedia. Students now have access on their iPads to educational videos, quizzes, games, images, and articles that can be tied in with district curriculum. The app correlates with PBS LearningMedia Student Portal which is web based and was launched earlier this year.
I Play and Sing PreK - K interactive reading activities
Speakaboos offers a growing library of 150+ stories & songs featuring animation, interactivity, music, and read-along text.
International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) is an iPad app that offers a plethora of free books specifically selected for kids and young learners. ICDL features a large collection of children’s books from over 60 countries and in different languages. The books are provided in highly readable format with beautiful illustrations and graphics. The purpose behind this project is to “to excite and inspire young readers to become better world citizens by leveraging technology to reach underserved children who have little access to libraries.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (free) allows children to read an interactive storybook by themselves, with help, or simply listen to it read aloud.
Goodnight Safari is a beautifully illustrated interactive book that children can explore independently.
A is for Amphibians nonfiction reading app for children ages five to eight. Immersive environments to present young children with nonfiction text. The BrightWorld apps have a conversational, friendly tone and share information about different natural science topics. The designers of the app have included activities like reading, unstructured play, and traditional gaming to reinforce one another and prompt children’s language acquisition.
Ocean Forests gr K - 3: Ocean environment non-fiction reading with interactive options.Includes printables, story starters, BINGO games, and a teacher’s guide. Visit BrightWorld’s website
Epic Creations! High quality children's books for reading on the web and ipad
Dragon and Wolf An interactive story about two boys helping some stars find their way home. For young children.
The Dog and the Bone is an interactive storybook Children can tap on the screen to hear the words read aloud and play a game that asks them to sequence eventsfrom the story. This app also includes comprehension questions for students to check their understanding of what they have read.
iStoryBooks offers more than two dozen children's books for free. The service offers iOS, Android, and Windows 8 apps. Most of the stories in the app are adaptations of classic children's tales like The Ugly Duckling. The app gives you the option to read each story or to read along with each story while listening to the narrator.
Frotz- Interactive Fiction gr 4- 12 readers interact with the stories by thinking, writing and reflecting.
The Dreamhold is an interactive fiction story that is designed to introduce readers to the concept of exploring story via text only (No graphics. No animation. Only words and imagination).
Zalarios Adventure Books interactive ebooks. The adventure series filled with dastardly villains and impossible predicaments? Be immersed in the amazing world of the Zalairos, an extraordinary group of young friends who work together to solve mysteries.
Oxford Owl is a collection of free children’s ebooks for kids ages 3-11. Each ebook has accompanying audio so that students can choose to read along, or read independently. The books also have activities that focus on reading comprehension and story recall.
Goodnight Safari is a beautifully illustrated interactive book that children can explore independently.
FlyingBooks The Flying Books Kid's Reader Bookstore app is a companion for young children to experience literature in a variety of different ways through listening, reading and creating stories.
Speakaboos is worth checking out! With three free books to download – and access to many more if you choose to upgrade – this app is full of engaging stories with audio support and interactive features.
Dino Store a twenty-three page story about a father and son going to the grocery store and accidentally coming home with dinosaur eggs that hatch at home. On each page of the story children can tap objects to make them change color, make sounds, move the dinosaurs, and discover other fun surprises.
Storybots students become a character in the story and part story creation tool.
Collins Big Cat Interactive Books It contains a short story that students can read or have narrated to them. The story contains interactive elements. After reading the students can create their own stories using settings and characters that match the theme of the story they just read.
It Was a Cold, Dark Night | The Steam Train | Around the World | My Bike Ride | In The Garden | At the Dump | Playing Story The Farmer's Lunch
Penguin Leveled Reader Students can listen to narration, read along, and manipulate the story. This app comes with one free text from each of the four levels offered and more can be downloaded with in-app purchases.
Little Minds This application has 6 carefully selected stories that use variation of fonts, styles, colors, pictures, situations, characters, and figures of speech to provide a uniquely intelligent and entertaining educational experience to early readers.
The Shoemaker and the Elves superb animation and interactive activities. Take your children on a magical journey and join the shoemaker and his wife as they receive lots of help from their friends the Elves and create the finest pairs of shoes ever made. Teach your children an important lesson that in giving they receive.
Flying Books find ebooks to read and create your own
MeeGenius ebooks for kids. MeeGenius allows users to turn narration on and off for each book. When narration is turned on each word in the story is highlighted as it's read.
Even Monsters Get Sick is a children’s story that is available in an interactive format for your child’s iPad.
Frotz play various interactive fiction adventure games. These are text based so you read literature in a fun, interactive way
Dr. Seuss Treasury app gives you easy access to 50+ classic Dr. Seuss books in a single, portable, digital library. Each book is a dynamic and interactive reading experience, complete with custom narration and sound effects, tappable words and pictures, and 3 reading modes that help even the youngest of readers connect with each story.
Luddi and Karlo are puffin twins, but they are very different. Every autumn Karl migrates to warmer places with all the other puffins.
Luddi, on the other hand, is too afraid to swim or fly.
Adventure Books Do you like action – adventure? Do you dream of being stranded on a desert island? Would you like to live in a tree, or experience adventures on the high seas--with pirates, storm, shipwreck, and mysterious creatures? The adventure books of this application feature some of the most memorable legends in literature. These adventure books are full of excitement and lots of information and their actions of the characters will usually pull the reader along.
Tell a Tale - a user verbally tells a story based on the first and last sentence of a story and three images.
Book Builder This app acts like a Choose Your Own Adventure style book where a picture book is read and then the user gets to decide between two different paths to take. There are two story books to choose from w/ over 30 different endings and each story can be narrated as well. As the narration is read it also highlights the words to help students w/ their Reading skills.
After the Drain This beautifully designed picture book educates children aged 5-8 all about wastewater.
Free eBooks: This collection includes many children’s classics in ebook format. You generally have the option to download these texts to your Kindle, iPad, Nook or computer. Video tutorials are included on the page. You may also want to visit our resource: Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books.
DK Readers has you covered. Kids can scroll through each book, identify text features, and read along with the highlighted text. This app comes with five free books and more can be downloaded with in app purchases. Storia is an ereader app for children's lit. When you download you get 5 free started books. You can create a classroom bookshelf or you can create individual bookshelves for all of your students. This would be great for reading differentiation and providing students with books at their instructional reading levels.
"Kids will get to immerse themselves in reading engaging stories narrated in professional ways that will hold their attention and allow their imagination to run wild while developing their reading skills .
Aesop for Children ‘Aesop's fables are some of the most well known in the world and have been translated in multiple languages and become popular in dozens of cultures through the course of five centuries.’
Fairy Tale ‘The Fairy Tale leads you to the directly made and shared world of children’s stories from the only read stories. You can make the stories with your families, lovers, and friends and also gift the made stories to someone you care for.
Treasure your beautiful memories by making them into a story. Your memories become more special.
Dumb Dream Fidos experiences a nightmare. Or have his friends left him?
Fruit Fruta: This delightfully simple picture book will help students learn the names of fruits in both English and Spanish.
Kids vs Rain: Where Does Rain Come From? This multi-touch, interactive iBook is a great choice for early learners.
Wheels on the Bus: Colorful and musical, this iBook is a great addition to an iPad reading library.
Do You Know Parrots? A great nonfiction choice for a digital reading library.
Sam the Fearless Shark: This colorful book is just one in a series of free iBooks.
Tongue Twisters for Kids: Super fun choice for a poetry unit or independent readers.
Toy Story: Woody’s Aqua Adventures: This Disney iBook includes lots of familiar and favorite characters.
Kids vs Planets: The Solar System Explained: Full of fun information on the planets, kids will explore science concepts as they turn each page.
Sharks: This nonfiction selection has lots of facts about one of my favorite marine creatures.
Rumpelstiltskin: This fairytale reads aloud to students so they can explore this classic story.
Read Me Stories provides a huge collection of children’s books. ‘The library also includes the lovely series Tuffy's First Adventure. This series of stories takes Tuffy the pony on a grand adventure, where he learns how to meet new friends, and do good deeds. The illustrations are gorgeous. The stories are captivating. The voices are a hoot. These new stories also highlight the text as the story is read. Touching the characters on screen expands the storyline.’
Dandelion $ ‘Dandelion is a moving interactive App about bullying and the power of imagination. This magical interactive story came about when the author's son experienced bullying.’
Story Time fir Kids is an interactive story telling app that is bundled with illustrated story books for children. Each story is bundled with original illustrations, narrations and sound effects! All the stories highlight the text as its read along. Children not only read but also learn how to read and pronounce the words clearly.’
Jack and the Beanstalk is an interactive & magical production of the famous English folktale by Francis Palgrave.
Jackie the Jaguar K - 1 rude Jacky is an amazing animated, multimedia eBook, designed to capture children's imagination.
more in this series
Lenny the Proud Lion
Gina's Journey to Giraffe Adventure World
Angus the Sweet Tooth Alligator
Dino the Dinosaur to the Rescue
Hank the Muddy Hippo
Freddie the Grumpy Frog
Elvis the Elephant and his Stuck Trunk!
Oh Candy!
Rivet Google's free reading app has 2,000 free e-books, and numerous features, including reading the words aloud and having students record what they hear – with artificial intelligence then assessing its accuracy. Teachers can create virtual classrooms and, I assume, monitor student progress (the ability to view student reading histories is not appear to be explicitly spelled out in the teacher’s guide, but I assume that’s the case). The app can be downloaded on Android and IOS devices, and on Chromebooks.
Novel Effect iPad app brings stories to life, promotes literacy, sparks imagination, and provides enjoyment for children aged 12 and under. The app follows the voice of users as they read aloud from children’s storybooks, and responds at just the right moment with music, sounds, and character voices.
Epic! for educators. Students have instant access to 1,000 of books. I have created a list of favorites since it may be overwhelming with all the book choices. The books are arranged on bookshelves according to genres and recommendations. Teachers can set up to 36 individual profiles for students based on reading levels, interests, and personal recommendations. Epic has recently added engaging educational videos covering different curriculum areas.
Zing is a service offering thousands of free fiction and non-fiction ebooks to teachers and students. On Zing you can browse for books by topic, language, or reading level. You can read the books in your web browser on a laptop or tablet. Zing is more than just a repository of free ebooks. In the Zing reader students will find a built-in dictionary and tools for taking notes while they read. video
PBS Students K - 12 designed for students and teachers created by PBS LearningMedia. Students now have access on their iPads to educational videos, quizzes, games, images, and articles that can be tied in with district curriculum. The app correlates with PBS LearningMedia Student Portal which is web based and was launched earlier this year.
I Play and Sing PreK - K interactive reading activities
Speakaboos offers a growing library of 150+ stories & songs featuring animation, interactivity, music, and read-along text.
International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) is an iPad app that offers a plethora of free books specifically selected for kids and young learners. ICDL features a large collection of children’s books from over 60 countries and in different languages. The books are provided in highly readable format with beautiful illustrations and graphics. The purpose behind this project is to “to excite and inspire young readers to become better world citizens by leveraging technology to reach underserved children who have little access to libraries.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (free) allows children to read an interactive storybook by themselves, with help, or simply listen to it read aloud.
Goodnight Safari is a beautifully illustrated interactive book that children can explore independently.
A is for Amphibians nonfiction reading app for children ages five to eight. Immersive environments to present young children with nonfiction text. The BrightWorld apps have a conversational, friendly tone and share information about different natural science topics. The designers of the app have included activities like reading, unstructured play, and traditional gaming to reinforce one another and prompt children’s language acquisition.
Ocean Forests gr K - 3: Ocean environment non-fiction reading with interactive options.Includes printables, story starters, BINGO games, and a teacher’s guide. Visit BrightWorld’s website
Epic Creations! High quality children's books for reading on the web and ipad
Dragon and Wolf An interactive story about two boys helping some stars find their way home. For young children.
The Dog and the Bone is an interactive storybook Children can tap on the screen to hear the words read aloud and play a game that asks them to sequence eventsfrom the story. This app also includes comprehension questions for students to check their understanding of what they have read.
iStoryBooks offers more than two dozen children's books for free. The service offers iOS, Android, and Windows 8 apps. Most of the stories in the app are adaptations of classic children's tales like The Ugly Duckling. The app gives you the option to read each story or to read along with each story while listening to the narrator.
Frotz- Interactive Fiction gr 4- 12 readers interact with the stories by thinking, writing and reflecting.
The Dreamhold is an interactive fiction story that is designed to introduce readers to the concept of exploring story via text only (No graphics. No animation. Only words and imagination).
Zalarios Adventure Books interactive ebooks. The adventure series filled with dastardly villains and impossible predicaments? Be immersed in the amazing world of the Zalairos, an extraordinary group of young friends who work together to solve mysteries.
Oxford Owl is a collection of free children’s ebooks for kids ages 3-11. Each ebook has accompanying audio so that students can choose to read along, or read independently. The books also have activities that focus on reading comprehension and story recall.
Goodnight Safari is a beautifully illustrated interactive book that children can explore independently.
FlyingBooks The Flying Books Kid's Reader Bookstore app is a companion for young children to experience literature in a variety of different ways through listening, reading and creating stories.
Speakaboos is worth checking out! With three free books to download – and access to many more if you choose to upgrade – this app is full of engaging stories with audio support and interactive features.
Dino Store a twenty-three page story about a father and son going to the grocery store and accidentally coming home with dinosaur eggs that hatch at home. On each page of the story children can tap objects to make them change color, make sounds, move the dinosaurs, and discover other fun surprises.
Storybots students become a character in the story and part story creation tool.
Collins Big Cat Interactive Books It contains a short story that students can read or have narrated to them. The story contains interactive elements. After reading the students can create their own stories using settings and characters that match the theme of the story they just read.
It Was a Cold, Dark Night | The Steam Train | Around the World | My Bike Ride | In The Garden | At the Dump | Playing Story The Farmer's Lunch
Penguin Leveled Reader Students can listen to narration, read along, and manipulate the story. This app comes with one free text from each of the four levels offered and more can be downloaded with in-app purchases.
Little Minds This application has 6 carefully selected stories that use variation of fonts, styles, colors, pictures, situations, characters, and figures of speech to provide a uniquely intelligent and entertaining educational experience to early readers.
The Shoemaker and the Elves superb animation and interactive activities. Take your children on a magical journey and join the shoemaker and his wife as they receive lots of help from their friends the Elves and create the finest pairs of shoes ever made. Teach your children an important lesson that in giving they receive.
Flying Books find ebooks to read and create your own
MeeGenius ebooks for kids. MeeGenius allows users to turn narration on and off for each book. When narration is turned on each word in the story is highlighted as it's read.
Even Monsters Get Sick is a children’s story that is available in an interactive format for your child’s iPad.
Frotz play various interactive fiction adventure games. These are text based so you read literature in a fun, interactive way
Dr. Seuss Treasury app gives you easy access to 50+ classic Dr. Seuss books in a single, portable, digital library. Each book is a dynamic and interactive reading experience, complete with custom narration and sound effects, tappable words and pictures, and 3 reading modes that help even the youngest of readers connect with each story.
Luddi and Karlo are puffin twins, but they are very different. Every autumn Karl migrates to warmer places with all the other puffins.
Luddi, on the other hand, is too afraid to swim or fly.
Adventure Books Do you like action – adventure? Do you dream of being stranded on a desert island? Would you like to live in a tree, or experience adventures on the high seas--with pirates, storm, shipwreck, and mysterious creatures? The adventure books of this application feature some of the most memorable legends in literature. These adventure books are full of excitement and lots of information and their actions of the characters will usually pull the reader along.
Tell a Tale - a user verbally tells a story based on the first and last sentence of a story and three images.
Book Builder This app acts like a Choose Your Own Adventure style book where a picture book is read and then the user gets to decide between two different paths to take. There are two story books to choose from w/ over 30 different endings and each story can be narrated as well. As the narration is read it also highlights the words to help students w/ their Reading skills.
After the Drain This beautifully designed picture book educates children aged 5-8 all about wastewater.
Free eBooks: This collection includes many children’s classics in ebook format. You generally have the option to download these texts to your Kindle, iPad, Nook or computer. Video tutorials are included on the page. You may also want to visit our resource: Download 20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books.
DK Readers has you covered. Kids can scroll through each book, identify text features, and read along with the highlighted text. This app comes with five free books and more can be downloaded with in app purchases. Storia is an ereader app for children's lit. When you download you get 5 free started books. You can create a classroom bookshelf or you can create individual bookshelves for all of your students. This would be great for reading differentiation and providing students with books at their instructional reading levels.
"Kids will get to immerse themselves in reading engaging stories narrated in professional ways that will hold their attention and allow their imagination to run wild while developing their reading skills .
Aesop for Children ‘Aesop's fables are some of the most well known in the world and have been translated in multiple languages and become popular in dozens of cultures through the course of five centuries.’
Fairy Tale ‘The Fairy Tale leads you to the directly made and shared world of children’s stories from the only read stories. You can make the stories with your families, lovers, and friends and also gift the made stories to someone you care for.
Treasure your beautiful memories by making them into a story. Your memories become more special.
Dumb Dream Fidos experiences a nightmare. Or have his friends left him?
Fruit Fruta: This delightfully simple picture book will help students learn the names of fruits in both English and Spanish.
Kids vs Rain: Where Does Rain Come From? This multi-touch, interactive iBook is a great choice for early learners.
Wheels on the Bus: Colorful and musical, this iBook is a great addition to an iPad reading library.
Do You Know Parrots? A great nonfiction choice for a digital reading library.
Sam the Fearless Shark: This colorful book is just one in a series of free iBooks.
Tongue Twisters for Kids: Super fun choice for a poetry unit or independent readers.
Toy Story: Woody’s Aqua Adventures: This Disney iBook includes lots of familiar and favorite characters.
Kids vs Planets: The Solar System Explained: Full of fun information on the planets, kids will explore science concepts as they turn each page.
Sharks: This nonfiction selection has lots of facts about one of my favorite marine creatures.
Rumpelstiltskin: This fairytale reads aloud to students so they can explore this classic story.
Read Me Stories provides a huge collection of children’s books. ‘The library also includes the lovely series Tuffy's First Adventure. This series of stories takes Tuffy the pony on a grand adventure, where he learns how to meet new friends, and do good deeds. The illustrations are gorgeous. The stories are captivating. The voices are a hoot. These new stories also highlight the text as the story is read. Touching the characters on screen expands the storyline.’
Dandelion $ ‘Dandelion is a moving interactive App about bullying and the power of imagination. This magical interactive story came about when the author's son experienced bullying.’
Story Time fir Kids is an interactive story telling app that is bundled with illustrated story books for children. Each story is bundled with original illustrations, narrations and sound effects! All the stories highlight the text as its read along. Children not only read but also learn how to read and pronounce the words clearly.’
Jack and the Beanstalk is an interactive & magical production of the famous English folktale by Francis Palgrave.
Jackie the Jaguar K - 1 rude Jacky is an amazing animated, multimedia eBook, designed to capture children's imagination.
more in this series
Lenny the Proud Lion
Gina's Journey to Giraffe Adventure World
Angus the Sweet Tooth Alligator
Dino the Dinosaur to the Rescue
Hank the Muddy Hippo
Freddie the Grumpy Frog
Elvis the Elephant and his Stuck Trunk!
Oh Candy!
Shakespeare
Shakespeare in Bits Visuals that correspond to the Shakesperean verse. The audio actors are spot on and the animations are great but the SOUND quality is a bit subpar especially on headphones. The notes and text are also well done.
Shakespeare the complete works of Shakespeare (41 plays, 154 sonnets and 6 poems, including doubtful works) and a searchable concordance to find the exact word or phrase you’re looking for
Explore Shakespeare from Cambridge University Press is a wonderful app for teachers and students working with these classics. Users can see pictures from different productions, tap on different lines of dialogue for clarification, and even listen to audio performances. This app lets you sample a few different selections before purchasing individual plays.
Shakespeare the complete works of Shakespeare (41 plays, 154 sonnets and 6 poems, including doubtful works) and a searchable concordance to find the exact word or phrase you’re looking for
Explore Shakespeare from Cambridge University Press is a wonderful app for teachers and students working with these classics. Users can see pictures from different productions, tap on different lines of dialogue for clarification, and even listen to audio performances. This app lets you sample a few different selections before purchasing individual plays.
Poetry
Poetry Everywhere is a collection of short poetry videos featuring contemporary poets reading their own works, introduced by Garrison Keillor. It’s pure poetry! With easy navigation, this app is a sure way to provide reflection and inspiration.
Poetry library of thousands of classic and contemporary works. The clever search function allows students to search by something as simple as a single line they remember hearing, and they can find new poems and try exciting new poets with a single shake of their mobile device!
Poetry library of thousands of classic and contemporary works. The clever search function allows students to search by something as simple as a single line they remember hearing, and they can find new poems and try exciting new poets with a single shake of their mobile device!
Research Tools
Penultimate The most natural digital handwriting experience on iPad, Penultimate gives you the convenience and feel of writing on paper with the added power and availability of Evernote. Take notes in class or a meeting, journal your thoughts, or outline your next big idea.
Mendely is your personal research library. Carry thousands of PDFs in your pocket. Read and annotate them on the go, search your entire library, and easily sync everything between your iPhone, iPad, and Mendeley Desktop
EBSCO host host databases and discovery technologies are the most-used, premium online information resources for tens of thousands of institutions worldwide.
Endnote Find, store, create and share from anywhere with EndNote® - the most powerful research productivity tool on the market. With flexible tools for searching, organizing and creating research, the EndNote® for iPad app extends your ability to stay on top of cutting edge research
Articles Just enter a search term and let Articles find the Wiki entry you are looking for. Use the integrated maps feature to learn about interesting places and historic events around your current location, or anywhere else in the world. Or simply shake your device and let Articles find an entry for you. Mark interesting entries you want to read in the future and search text in the currently open document.
Mendely is your personal research library. Carry thousands of PDFs in your pocket. Read and annotate them on the go, search your entire library, and easily sync everything between your iPhone, iPad, and Mendeley Desktop
EBSCO host host databases and discovery technologies are the most-used, premium online information resources for tens of thousands of institutions worldwide.
Endnote Find, store, create and share from anywhere with EndNote® - the most powerful research productivity tool on the market. With flexible tools for searching, organizing and creating research, the EndNote® for iPad app extends your ability to stay on top of cutting edge research
Articles Just enter a search term and let Articles find the Wiki entry you are looking for. Use the integrated maps feature to learn about interesting places and historic events around your current location, or anywhere else in the world. Or simply shake your device and let Articles find an entry for you. Mark interesting entries you want to read in the future and search text in the currently open document.