SLPs are constantly on the lookout for good quality affordable materials in the area of literacy. However, what many clinicians may not realize is that there are massive amounts of FREE evidence-based literacy-related resources available online for their use. These materials can be easily adapted or implemented as is, by parents, teachers, speech-language pathologists, as well as other literacy-focused professionals (e.g., tutors, etc.).
Below, I have compiled a rather modest list of my preferred resources (including a few articles) for children aged Pre-K-12 grade pertaining to the following literacy-related areas:
- Phonological Awareness
- Phonics
- Vocabulary acquisition and semantic knowledge
- Morphological Awareness
- Reading fluency
- Reading Comprehension
- Writing
Cognitive foundation for learning to read is a website which compiled numerous research citations pertaining to how children learn to read.
A Curriculum Guide for Reading Mentors is a 184-page guide for reading mentors which contains valuable resources, research, as well as lesson plans with the name of teaching children to read.
Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert is an open-access article which provides a “comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children’s earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers.”
Teaching Reading is Rocket Science is a seminal 1999 article by Louisa Moates for the American Federation of Teachers explaining that teaching reading to children effectively is much harder than people think.
Working Smarter, Not Harder: What Teachers of Reading Need to Know and Be Able to Teach is an article by Carol Tolman originally published in the Perspectives, Fall 2005, The International Dyslexia Association, which reviews the crucial skills involved in the “five core components” of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
What the Research Says We Should Really be Teaching in Reading is a 60-page handout which describes components integral to reading success.
Effective Instruction For Adolescent Struggling Readers is a guide which explains how professionals can intervene with adolescent learners with significant reading needs.
NJ Dyslexia Handbook is a free guide from the state of New Jersey which provides “information to educators, students, families, and community members about dyslexia, early literacy development, and the best practices for identification, instruction, and accommodation of students who have reading difficulties.”
Useful Literacy Related Videos
- Dr. David Kilpatrick: Effective & Ineffective Interventions for Word Reading
- Dr. David Kilpatrick: Understanding Reading Development and Difficulties
- Dr. Jon Preston: Speech and Language Basis of Reading
- Drs. Murray, Munger & Kilpatrick: The Development of Sight Words – Orthographic Mapping
- Dr. Maria Murray: Orthographic Mapping: What it Is and Why It’s So Important
- Dr. Maria Murray: What is the “Simple View of Reading?” What it Means for Meaning-Making
- Dr. Maria Murray: Learning to Read Words: Is it a Visual Memory Task?
- Dr. Maria Murray: Syllable Patterns and Syllable Division
- Murray & Finn: Reading Longer Words: Syllable Types and Irregular Sounds
- Dr. Maria Murray: Strategies for Teaching Irregular “Tricky” Words
- Dr. Maria Murray: Phoneme vs. Phonological Awareness: Knowing the Difference Matters for Assessment and Instruction
- Dr. Maria Murray: Oral Reading Fluency: Understand it to Improve It
*M. A Rooney Foundation provides professional learning support that focuses on increasing student achievement. Their resource library contains an enormous amount of information including complete Orton-Gillingham training manuals, lesson plans, card decks, etc.
- Teacher Training
- Card Decks
- OG Training Manual
- OG Lesson Plans
- Teacher Tools
- What Works Graphics
- Planning for School Achievement
- Video Demonstrations
The Literacy Bug Website is a great site, dedicated to, you guessed it, all things literacy. It has an amazing wealth of resources on such topics as Five Stages of Reading Development, Stages of Literacy Development, as well as the following compilation of newly released materials:
- “Elements” Checklist
- Guide to Sound-Letter Correspondences
- Phonemes Cards
- Graphemes Cards (letters and letter combinations)
- Common Onset & Rime Patterns (e.g. b + ack = back)
- Morphemes Cards (prefixes, suffixes, and roots)
- High-Frequency Words Cards
- Guide to Sentence Construction (types, structures, and features)
FLORIDA CENTER FOR READING RESEARCH has a vast collection of materials for Grades K-5 on the topics of
- Alphabet Knowledge
- Phonological Awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Language and Vocabulary
- Comprehension
Systematic and Engaging Early Literacy (SEEL) website provides easy to use lesson plans for grades Pre-K-1
FREE Phonics Books for Parents and Teachers by Stephen Parker provide helpful step by step information for parents and teachers on how to teach synthetic phonics to children 2-10 years of age
- Teaching a Preschooler to Read: Phonics for Parents and Other Care-Givers
- Reading Instruction and Phonics: Theory and Practice for Teachers
Free Phonics Books and Lessons
- Specific Learning Difficulties Association Australia (201 Free Books and 151 Free Worksheets)
- The Schoolhouse US (61 Free Lessons + Miscellaneous materials)
- The Reading Bear (50 Free Lessons and Quizzes)
- Multisyllabic word reading training is a nice resource which explains the importance of teaching multisyllabic word training and its impacts on reading comprehension abilities.
Free Morphology Resources
- Vocabulary.com – Roots and Affixes
- Verbivore Teacher
- Teaching Morphology: Enhancing Vocabulary Development and Reading Comprehension
- Key Literacy Component: Morphology
Free Reading Comprehension Resources
- Reading Comprehension from K-12 Reader Numerous worksheets for grades 1-10th
- Reading Comprehension on a variety of fictional, nonfictional, and inferential topics for grades 1-12
- Anita Archer Shared Materials and Resources on a Variety of Literacy-Related Topics
- Teaching Students With Comprehension Difficulties To Read Like Detectives by Louisa Moates
Free Writing Resources
- Time4Writing.com Comprehensive list of writing standards for grades K-12
- Proofreading, Revising, & Editing Skills Success in 20 Minutes A Day is a 200+ page book packed with writing essentials including a 5-page pretest to determine the student’s writing competency and a starting intervention point.
- Quill.org is an interactive website which provides free writing and grammar activities for elementary, middle, and high school students.
- Interactive Website to Improve Student Writing for Grades 3-5
- ReadWriteThink.com Writing Resources
- Ereading Worksheets
There you have it! My rather modest list of literacy-related FREE resources TO DATE, which I use with my clients on daily basis. Please note that I will continue to update this post periodically, as I gain knowledge of other relevant to literacy websites containing links to FREE EBP materials.
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Wow!! So many free and incredible resources. Thank you so much for going through everything and making this comprehensive list. I feel truly grateful.
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[…] Free Literacy Resources for Parents and Professionals is a compilation of FREE EBP literacy-related resources for children aged preschool-12th grades. […]