Help Teaching

HelpTeaching is a free online collection of English Language Arts worksheets designed for teachers, students, and parents.

In simple terms, it is a website where you can find ready-to-use materials to teach and practise English skills. These worksheets cover areas such as reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension, and they are organised by grade level, from early education to high school.

The main purpose of this resource is to make teaching easier. Teachers can download or print worksheets to use in class, assign them as homework, or use them for quick assessments. Many of the materials are designed to reinforce what students learn in lessons, helping them practise skills step by step.

The content is very varied. For example, you can find:

• Reading passages with questions
• Grammar and spelling exercises
• Writing prompts and activities
• Worksheets focused on specific skills like prefixes, punctuation, or text analysis

https://www.helpteaching.com/free-english-language-arts-worksheets.htm

ESLfriend.com

ESLfriend.com is an online platform offering free ESL resources, including handouts, lessons, activities, and full lesson-sets for English language teaching and learning. The site describes itself as providing materials ranging from daily conversation and grammar to business English and test preparation. 

One of the major strengths of ESLfriend is its breadth of content: there are materials for a variety of levels, topics and uses — from conversation starters to full lesson packs. For teachers, this means a ready-made resource library to draw on, reducing preparation time. For learners, the materials can offer extra practice outside class. Another plus is the free access to most of the materials, making it accessible for educators and students with limited budget.

The site also includes media-based lessons (reading passages, audio, discussion questions) which are useful for integrating skills (reading, speaking, listening) rather than only grammar.

Find it on:

https://eslfriend.com/

Free English Language Arts Worksheets

Free English Language Arts Worksheets on HelpTeaching provides a collection of downloadable worksheets for various English language skills. These cover topics like grammar, reading comprehension, writing, vocabulary, punctuation, and more. 

Teachers can use them to reinforce lessons, assign practice work, or support students who need extra help.

https://www.helpteaching.com/free-english-language-arts-worksheets.htm

Most Americans love reading aloud to children, survey finds

A recent YouGov survey reveals that 53% of U.S. adults say they love reading to children, with another 14% doing so very frequently. The findings highlight the continued value placed on shared reading experiences, especially when books are fun, visually engaging, and educational.

What kinds of books are most enjoyed?

Picture books top the list, with 50% saying they “love” them and 34% saying they “like” them.

Books with rhyming text and educational content are also well-received.

While chapter books are slightly less popular, they still hold a strong place in read-aloud routines.

The survey also shows what adults prioritize when choosing read-aloud books:

They should be entertaining (64% rated this as very important).

Have appealing illustrations (57%).

Offer a valuable message or lesson (51%).

Interestingly, 18% of respondents say they “always” use different voices for characters, while over 60% do so at least occasionally — a simple yet powerful strategy to spark imagination and hold children's attention.

This data reinforces the importance of reading aloud as an educational and emotional tool. Teachers and families alike can enrich storytime by selecting fun, visual, and meaningful books, and bringing characters to life with voice variations. It’s not just about reading — it’s about creating a moment of connection and curiosity.

Source: 

https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/52531-most-americans-say-they-love-reading-to-children

Lyrikline.org

Lyrikline.org is an international online platform dedicated to poetry. It was created in 1999 by the Haus für Poesie in Berlin, Germany.

The website offers poems from around the world in their original language and often translated into other languages (including English), audio recordings of poets reading their own poems, biographical information about the poets, and access to thousands of poems from different cultures and time periods.

Lyrikline.org can be very useful for language learning as you can listen to poems in their original language and improve your listening skills.

https://www.lyrikline.org/en/home/

A selection of poems in English:

https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems?nav=1&filter_fired=1&lang%5B%5D=en

Library of America short stories

This webpage offers an extensive, alphabetically organized list of stories featured in the Library of America's "Story of the Week" series. Each entry includes the author's name and the title of the story, providing readers with easy access to a diverse range of American literature. 

This resource is particularly useful for educators, students, and literature enthusiasts seeking to explore works by specific authors or to discover new stories within the American literary tradition.

https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/p/stories-sorted-by-author.html

CommonLit library

The CommonLit library is a free online resource that provides a vast collection of high-quality reading materials for students and educators. It includes a diverse range of texts, such as short stories, poems, articles, and historical documents, designed to help students from grades 3 to 12 improve their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. The library offers texts that cover various genres, themes, and reading levels, making it adaptable for different educational needs.

Each text in the CommonLit library is accompanied by comprehension questions, discussion prompts, and sometimes paired texts to support literacy instruction. Teachers can create accounts to assign readings to their students and track progress. The platform is used widely in classrooms to support reading development and align with academic standards like Common Core.

You can explore the library here:

https://www.commonlit.org/en/library?initiatedFrom=library

Links for ESL Students

This website offers a collection of links to various language learning and practice sites. You can find websites here for learning and practicing all skills: grammar, reading, writing, listening, idioms, and pronunciation.

https://esl.bowvalleycollege.ca/

What can we learn from the #PISA reading-fluency test?

Skilled readers actively interact with diverse types of texts such as books, online articles, and social media. They possess the ability to extract information, comprehend both literal and implied meanings, and critically analyze content and structure. However, the journey to becoming proficient readers begins with achieving fluency. 

Once students attain reading fluency in any language, they can redirect their focus and energy toward more advanced comprehension tasks, allowing for a deeper engagement with texts. 

This policy brief explores insights derived from the evaluation of students' reading fluency in the 2018 PISA test and emphasizes its significance for educators.

Find it on:

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/c698b19a-en.pdf?expires=1699693869&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=2FB89BDCDF8B0816E39C0234329970B5

Developing reading skills by @TrinityC_L

This resource is designed for English language teachers who want to explore and enhance reading skills with their language learners. It offers:

Techniques for the English language classroom.

Guidance on adapting and creating reading materials using authentic resources, coursebooks, and online classroom resources.

Lower-order and higher-order questions categorized according to key focus areas, which can be used to assess a learner's reading skills.

Information on additional support resources and opportunities for professional development (CPD).

https://www.trinitycollege.com/resource/?id=10015

English Practice #Worksheets B2

Downloadable PDF grammar and vocabulary worksheets

Grammar Worksheets B2

http://www.english-practice.at/b2/grammar/b2-grammar-index.htm 

Vocabulary B2

http://www.english-practice.at/b2/vocabulary/b2-vocabulary-index.htm 

Listening & comprehension

http://www.english-practice.at/b2/listening/b2-listening-index.htm 

Writing

http://www.english-practice.at/b2/writing/b2-writing-index.htm 

News articles B1/ B2

http://www.english-practice.at/news-articles/news-articles-index.htm 

Reading practice from A1 English level (elementary) to C1 English level (advanced) #BrisishCouncil

Activities to practise your reading skills organised by English level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR). 

Awesome resource to improve your reading skills at your own speed, whenever it's convenient for you. You can take a free online English test to find out which level to choose.

Find it on:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading 

QuestionWell #AITool by @questionwellai

QuestionWell is an AI tool that generates reading comprehension and guiding questions.  

You can copy and paste a reading that contains the content you would like to test or write your own.

Questions created can be saved in a document or exported to Canvas, Quizziz, Kahoot, Blooket, and Gimkit

Features:

https://www.questionwell.org/features 

Webpage:

https://www.questionwell.org/

esl-lounge

esl-lounge gives free access to hundreds of ESL lesson plans and materials that can be used for communicative English lessons in the classroom. The emphasis on this site is on communication. The majority of resources are geared towards getting students talking.

Alongside the printable grammar worksheets, surveys, flashcards, reading comprehension and communication activities for each level, there are also board games and song lyrics for teachers. There is also a section devoted to phonetics and the improvement of student pronunciation of English. (Source esl-lounge)

Visit:

https://www.esl-lounge.com/ 

Reading British Council. Learn English

Activities to practise your reading skills. The self-study lessons in this section are written and organised by English level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages. 

Different types of texts and interactive exercises that practise the reading skills you need. 

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading 

Imagination Soup (@ImaginationSoup)

Created by Melissa Taylor, a former teacher and former literacy trainer, Imagination Soup is a place where parents, librarians, and educators can find book recommendations and educational learning ideas and resources for kids ages 0-13.

On Twitter

https://twitter.com/imaginationsoup 

On Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ImaginationSoup 

On Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/imaginationsoup/?hl=en 

Visit

https://imaginationsoup.net/ 

Day of European Authors

The Day of European Authors is an initiative of the European Commission, led by Commissioner Gabriel, to reconnect younger generations with book reading and to help them discover the diversity of European literature.

As well as helping youngsters reconnect with books, this yearly celebration aims to show how literature can be a tool for individual empowerment. Books and reading can enable people in secondary education to engage with ongoing social and personal challenges.

The Day is also an opportunity to emphasise the importance of all the programmes and initiatives already running in individual EU countries to promote reading.

The first edition of the Day of European Authors is taking place on 27 March 2023. (Source European Commission)

Information:

https://culture.ec.europa.eu/cultural-and-creative-sectors/books-and-publishing/day-of-european-authors 

Rewordify.com

Created by Neil M. Goldman, Rewordify.com is powerful, free, online software that improves reading, learning, and teaching. It can simplify difficult English, for faster comprehension, teach words, for building a better vocabulary, help teachers save time and produce engaging lessons, and help improve learning outcomes.

Visit:

https://rewordify.com/ 

The World Stories Project

The World Stories Project is a growing collection of traditional and original stories from around the world shared in the languages most commonly spoken by children in the UK. 

WorldStories is an interactive online resource of illustrated stories shared in many different languages to help children read and learn using the same stories as their peers.

https://worldstories.org.uk/lang/english

The #PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia

The PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia: Education Policy and Curriculum in Reading presents a profile of reading and language instruction in PIRLS 2021 countries and benchmarking systems.

The PIRLS 2021 Encyclopedia includes two different types of data: exhibits showing results from the PIRLS 2021 curriculum questionnaire, and chapters prepared by individual countries and benchmarking participants.

https://pirls2021.org/encyclopedia/