Community reviews for Epic! - Kids' Books and Videos

I love having this as a teaching tool that I use every day. The students love it because they get to choose the books that they want to read. It is awesome!

I love using EPIC. This has been an engaging addition to what I was already doing. It has also allowed me to easily access books that will help with my diverse learners on all levels.

I love Epic reading. My students love it too. They always ask when they can use it. I love that I can use it to enhance my science lessons. I love that I can assign books for my students to read at their own reading levels. This is an amazing resource.

This is an excellent resource for the classroom. It is flexible and easy for teachers and students to utilize in a way that works for them.

This is great teaching App. It offers a variety themes and topics including both entertainment and informative books.

In my opinion, Epic books is an awesome teaching tool for several reasons. One reason I like Epic books is because of the variety of books students can read. For example, students can choose fiction or nonfiction books. Also, Epic books has tons of educational videos students enjoy watching! Finally, my students love earning reading badges. I believe this is extremely important because reading longer ensures stronger reading skills! In addition, they love using Epic books for reading research projects. As a teacher, Epic books is an easy tool to use for reading comprehension. I can create quizzes for my students according to their individualized reading levels. Currently, our class is doing the reading challenge-we have read over 4,000 books thus for this year! Our goal for this year is 5,000 books. My students get so excited when Epic books sends us a Congratulations you have earned a reading badge for our caterpillar reading goal poster that hangs outside our classroom in the hallway for everyone to see our progress! So now you can see why Epic books is our class favorite reading website!

Epic! is a free app with thousands of books made available for students in your classroom. These books are in a variety of levels, appropriate for ages 2-12. Some of these books include an audio version where students can listen to the text being read aloud.

EPIC! is one of my favorite teaching tools. It is an inexpensive (free) way to increase the number of books in my classroom. I love that I can create book collections to share with my students. The Read-to-Me texts are helpful for my non-readers/low level readers. Students are excited to use this app for their free reading time. My students do enjoy watching the videos. While, I do not mind some video watching, I do have to teach expectations for when it is okay to watch videos and when it is not. I like that students can do an advance search to include fiction or non-fiction. Students can also search by Lexile or AR level. At my school, we use DRA so it would be helpful to have the option to search by DRA level. I like that students can access this app from home. However, most of my Title I students generally do not have the extra money for this.

Overall, this application is child friendly, very engaging, and has a user friendly platform. I would recommend it for use in the classroom, especially if you are in need of a strong collection of elementary aged texts, with thorough information. This could serve kids and teaching better with a few adjustments, however it is important to acknowledge this is a free resource for educators to use within the classroom; paid for families outside of a classroom. For a generally free resource I feel as though it exceeds expectations. Using the TPACK Model: Pedagogically Epic is strong due to the differentiation abilities; students have the option to pick audio books, have a text read aloud with on screen word tracking (reading fluency), leveled texts, multi-genre, multi-media, etc. Although, not all texts have the option or ability to be listened to, there is a large selection that can. Students also have the option to take a quiz on some of the texts they have read. The quizzes only come in a multiple choice format; no written responses. A suggestion to increase the pedagogical domain of this app would be to add a component where written responses can be recorded, with a link to state standards. Due to the lack of ability to create or deeply respond to questions about texts through this app, I don't believe this application redefines the task of reading texts. I feel as though Epic modifies the task of reading allowing reading to be truly redesigned using this tool. Students get instant encouragement each time a book is completed and often this comes in the form of badges or awards. This is motivational and engaging to students and awards do not pop up when a student finishes a physical copy of a book, redefining the reading experience through this application. Epic also provides instant "feedback" through the quizzes; although that feedback is not thorough, for example if a student simply guesses on an answer they are then immediately shared the correct answer rather than receiving feedback and another opportunity to respond. This can lead to students simply guessing through the questions to complete a quiz, rather than using skills to grow their comprehension while they read.

Great Free tool