ReadWriteThink

Free hub for literacy lessons aims to deepen learning, engagement

Learning rating

Community rating

Based on 41 reviews

Privacy rating

Expert evaluation by Common Sense

Grades

K–12

Subjects & Skills

Critical Thinking, English Language Arts, English-Language Learning

Great for

Instructional Design, Professional Learning

Price: Free
Platforms: Web

Pros: Quality lessons with transparent authorship. Interactive worksheets. Diverse authors/ideas. Discounted books for members.

Cons: Printables can’t be edited. Limited video resources for teacher PD. No live support chat.

Bottom Line: This is a trustworthy site that teachers of all grades/subjects could find a way to use weekly for lessons or professional development.

ReadWriteThink offers lesson plans, student printables, interactive worksheets, and teacher professional development opportunities. Everything is well-organized by grade, topic, type, and learning objective filters, so you can quickly sort through resources to find something and see the standards it meets. There are lesson plans available to edit and download if you need a complete resource on a topic. They also offer a ton of graphic organizers (printable or interactive) that can be incorporated into an already existing curriculum. 

The professional development section offers strategy guides and information on meetings, events. The strategy guides are worth checking out as they feature teaching strategies paired with quick explanations of the research basis behind them. The big thing this section is missing, however, are asynchronous webinars.

ReadWriteThink is a free website for teachers with a resource library of lessons, interactive activities, and printables for literacy instruction. It was created by by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and is assigned with NCTE standards, International Reading Association (IRA) standards and Common Core, where applicable. The site serves language arts teachers from K through 12th grade.

There's a rotating assortment of featured resources on the homepage, but most users will rely on the browse experience with a set of filters on the left hand side of the site. Here users can search for materials by grade level, learning objective, topic and more. The site also features a menu with three core sections Classroom Resources and Professional Development. The Classroom Resources section contains hundreds of unit plans, lesson plans, and activities, divided by topic, learning objective, and/or grade level. Note that in terms of activities there are printables as well as student interactives. There's also a literacy calendar makes it easy to find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and different holidays (with resources attached to them). The Professional Development section has strategy guides that break down teaching strategies and their research backing as well a meetings/events calendar and a library of research-based resources. A Collections section offers resources grouped into a few core concerns: Primary Sources, Booklists, Authors, Assessment, Writing, Poetry, and Media Literacy. 

ReadWriteThink is a gift for language arts teachers. There's a wealth of high-quality and accessible content here, spread out across grade levels and for the both students and teachers alike. Lesson plans and activities are well-designed and encourage depth of learning; however, many materials are PDFs which makes remixing a bit more difficult. Resources are considered classroom-tested and evidence-based, and feature author bios with credentials to verify that fact. To this end, ReadWriteThink aims to have all curriculum be reviewed by "at least two literacy educators" who are vetted as literacy experts, including NCTE members and professional educators. The site is free to use, but there are books and live events for sale -- discounted for NCTE members.

While there are comments on resources, that feature doesn't seem fully utilized. It'd be great to see ReadWriteThink get teachers more involved in the site and to support great dialogue and collaborate between teachers. The interactive resources, while still useful, are in need of updating and modernization.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating
Engagement

The student resources and professional development aim to increase student engagement with traditional content. Some resources are showing their age, but still useful.

Pedagogy

Well-designed lesson plans and activities encourage deep learning and research-based approaches. Resource feature authors and their qualifications. 

Support

There's a rotating assortment of featured resources, and it's easy to search for materials by grade level, learning objective, or topic. There's no live chat, but teachers can email for support.

Common Sense reviewer

Community Rating

What does this site not have?

I love this tool because it has so many resources and motivational activities students can use in the classroom. It can help teachers find resources for teaching just about anything .

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Privacy Rating

Data Safety How safe is this product?

  • Unclear whether this product supports interactions between trusted users.
  • Unclear whether personal information can be displayed publicly.
  • Unclear whether user-created content is filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.

Data Rights What rights do I have to the data?

  • Unclear whether users can create or upload content.
  • Unclear whether this product provides processes to access and review user data.
  • Unclear whether this product provides processes to modify data for authorized users.

Ads & Tracking Are there advertisements or tracking?

  • Unclear whether personal information are shared for third-party marketing.
  • Unclear whether this product displays traditional or contextual advertisements.
  • Unclear whether this product displays personalised advertising.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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