CommonLit Review: What is CommonLit?
| Community Ratings | ★★★★☆ | Subjects Offered | English Language Arts, English-Language Learning, Social Studies |
| Privacy Ratings | ★★★★☆ | Pricing | Free |
| Learing Effectiveness | ★★★★★ | Supported Platforms | Web |
What is CommonLit?
CommonLit offers lots of different reading materials like news, poems, and stories. You can choose texts by grade, difficulty, or topic. They also have special sets grouped by time or style. Each text has a short introduction and footnotes for tricky words.
Teachers can find Spanish texts and helpful curriculum resources. Middle school teachers can look forward to an updated version coming soon.
| Pros | Cons |
| Differentiated texts, fresh learning objectives, and ongoing assessment enable customization. Supportive questions, evaluations, and conversations, along with notes, enhance the learning process. | Students might require assistance to fully utilize the toolbar. Advanced learners might lose interest in the assessment style if it doesn’t suit them. |
How Can I Teach With CommonLit?
CommonLit provides lots of resources for teachers. They can create lessons based on what their students need to read. You can use the search tool to find texts about different topics like America, Education, Family, Friendship, Prejudice and Discrimination, Resilience, and Growing Up.
You can also search by type of writing or how it’s written. If you want texts for a specific grade or reading level, you can use filters. If you need two texts that go together, click the Paired Text tab. If you’re short on time, try the Text Set filter.
It gives you 50 options sorted by time period or writing style. There are news stories, articles, speeches, poems, and short stories ready to use.
The latest Target Lesson filter assists teachers in saving time by assessing student understanding.
Teachers select a passage, share it as a PDF or task, and set a due date. Passages include assessment and discussion questions. Teachers can opt for a Guided Reading mode for simultaneous question answering. Students can highlight text and input their own thoughts. Teachers may assign students to use the tool and review their input afterward.
How Good CommonLit Is For Learning
CommonLit supports students with various reading abilities and languages. It’s beneficial for individuals studying English and those struggling with reading. Every text, accessible in PDF or online format, includes explanations for key terms and background details in footnotes. This aids comprehension for children.
Additionally, there are questions to respond to and features for annotating and commenting. These features assess comprehension and promote critical thinking.The entire experience matches what teachers teach and what students need to become better readers.
One thing missing is having different reading levels for each text. But teachers can give different texts to different students, so they read at the right level for them.
Teachers can use suggested texts, media, and tips to help students learn more. Parents can also join in to help kids learn at home.
These resources help students learn about different topics. They’re good for homework, extra help, or learning more about a topic. But not all resources are equally good, so teachers might need to find extra ones.
| Factor | Rating | Description |
| Engagement | ★★★★☆ | Students have access to many different passages at various levels.They can translate parts of the passages easily. Each passage has a picture and is organized into easy paragraphs, making it fun to read. |
| Easy To Use | ★★★★★ | Students develop critical thinking skills by analyzing real texts on different subjects. They also gain important background information with footnotes, highlighting, paired texts, and related media. |
| Support | ★★★★★ | The website offers different reading levels, various translation choices, and audio help, so students from diverse backgrounds can easily read. Parent guides give helpful ideas for home learning. |
