Do you know reading is one of the most important aspects of child development? While adults often engage in reading articles or news, it is equally important for kids to develop good reading habits. Reading and storytelling often lead to good imagination skills as kids are able to connect with characters and scenarios presented while reading. Reading also exposes kids to the usage of language and how words are pronounced in the right manner.
Additionally, reading helps children develop and understand emotions. When they read about a particular person, an incident, or a fable, they are more likely to create relatability with the context. Children also receive an opportunity to understand different perspectives. It engages their mind and they develop critical thinking abilities.
While reading a book is a good habit, the web gives a universal approach to reading. Certain websites are specifically developed for reading stories, narrations, comprehension, and other texts. Children can also hear the stories while they read, thanks to the web. Hence, here’s the list of helpful websites that engage kids in reading different subjects and their topics of interest.
Free reading websites for kids
Reading is an important activity for kids as exposure to different words enhances their vocabulary. The more they read, the more information they grasp. While books do a great job, check out these free reading websites designed for kids. They have visually appealing pictures and an easy user interface for parents, teachers, and adults.
1. Story Jumper
This is a helpful website to make kids read and also understand various stories. Go to the menu and click on the library. This page of the website offers books in different categories – family, friends, pets, or Minecraft. Kids can also select their preferred language from 7 available languages on the site. Another tab of the collection is filled with books collected under a particular subject matter.
Kids can browse through various books after clicking on the specific subject matter. Under each category, there are several books listed. With an auto-rotate view, Kids can start reading stories and easily navigate to another page with the option provided. Each book is a classic piece filled with information, illustrations, and colorful scenarios.
Another fascinating feature of the website is the option of read-aloud books. With this category, kids understand the words and pronunciation while the system reads it thoroughly. The Read aloud feature allows kids to re-listen certain texts and words to understand the sound and correct pronunciation. Even the read-aloud books have creative sketches, illustrations, and attractive plots to engage children in listening and reading together.
2. Storynory
Storynory is a classic website for kids who wish to participate in reading and active listening. Reading different stories and comprehension also helps them build concentration and focus. This website is home to fairytales, educational books, classic audiobooks, specifically categorized stories for juniors, and stories related to myths and the world. Interestingly, the website also gives access to poems and music for kids.
As the stories are divided into various categories, kids get to learn about the history of the world, ancient adventures, original stories, and beautifully drafted fairytales. One of the amazing features of the website is the combination of reading and listening to the stories.
There is an option where kids can choose the system audio to play the recording. As it starts playing, the story is entirely written below it. It allows kids to keep track of words, punctuation marks, and voice, and also look at the high-end graphics. Kids can also browse through poems and rhymes at the Storynory website.
3. StoryPlace!
As the name suggests, the Story place website is home to various stories and rhymes. The website is filled with creative pictures and easy-to-read fonts. On the home page, there are 3 different categories to choose from with reference to their themes. Under each theme, there are features. Firstly, each theme has a short story in the form of an animated video. Kids can hear them, see the text, and try to read them aloud with the video.
It can be a bit tricky to navigate different tabs and get the right material. Hence, click on the menu and choose “Preschool Activity Library.” This will lead to various themes wherein you can select a desired one. Along with the readable stories, the website offers video links wherein different humans explain rhymes and poems through creative stickers stuck on the board. There are various online activities and take-home activities to enhance reading skills.
4. Children’s Digital Library
This is a helpful website for parents and teachers to browse from a plethora of books. The website has a subtle look with a simple user interface. The site aims to offer various books that can be categorized by languages, shapes, formats, and genres.
There are more than four thousand different books available on the website. For any book, simply click on the name of the book. After that, you will be navigated to the book purely available for reading. Here, every book has a different font, writing style, and illustrations. Kids get a good opportunity to browse through thousands of books and also understand how each book benefits them in the reading process. The books on this website are vintage in look giving a historical touch to the readers. One needs to see through various books to understand which one fits the best.
5. Children’s Storybooks
This is an easy-to-use website with a variety of online books. These books are further categorized as young children, older children, and young adults. Kids can find a plethora of online books about animals, alphabets, and other topics. The website interface is simple to navigate and is filled with colorful pictures.
Every book has different illustrations with the text given at the bottom of the book. Kids can view different scenarios of the story, read the text, and also connect with the characters. The arrow button helps to easily move from one page to another. Some are really short versions divided into 10 lines while some stories contain numerous pages. Since every story offers different formats and visuals, it creates an engaging learning environment for readers. Certain story books are also equipped with audio for boosting active listening skills.
The websites also offer various online games, quizzes, and riddles for kids. Teachers and parents can also check coloring books and mazes for an entertaining and amusing learning experience.
6. Free Kids Books
This website is a helpful site for kids and toddlers. Teachers and parents can also use this website to enhance the learning experience. Here, the books are categorized as toddlers, children, older children, and young adults. Furthermore, one can find books according to authors, languages, publishing house, age group, and ESL English level.
With every book, kids get to understand the book with a short summary before moving ahead. One of the good parts about the website is the download feature. Most of the books can be downloaded as a free PDF. These books can also be viewed online. While some books are elaborated with texts and illustrations, some books are simple and only have relevant information on a particular subject matter.
Towards the end of the page, there are various categories of books – values, animals, science, fiction, superheroes, nature, rhyming, and others. Such an option enables teachers and parents to choose a different book every day.
7. Just Books Read Aloud
Presenting another website that has a huge collection of storybooks for kids. The website has thousands of books listed under a plethora of categories. Initially, the website allows users to choose books according to their length, authors, narrators, reading level, and languages. As the name suggests, these are read-aloud books along with nicely animated videos.
Here, kids are not only reading the book but also watching the plot and animations through the videos. There are 1127 books spread across more than 50 categories to choose from. According to these categories, books are displayed and as you click on it, a video is presented on the screen. Teachers and parents can opt to turn on/off the captions. As kids go through the stories, they also read captions and learn to coordinate their reading with the pace of the narrator.
Additionally, the website allows users to watch these stories through YouTube. One can also copy the link and share it with other classmates. Teachers can use this as an activity for students as it is completely free.
8. Fun Brain
Introducing another fun website to engage kids in reading. The website is free and it also allows you to download books into the system. Teachers and parents can browse books by grade starting from kindergarten.
The website offers a plethora of reading books designed under the category of animals, humans, imaginary characters, and stories with morals. Each book is different with respect to illustrations, sketches, fonts, and the overall format. This feature allows teachers and parents to find a new book every time while reading. The arrow button helps kids move from one page to the other.
While it is purely watching the text and reading, certain books are filled with creative and visually appealing graphics. Kids also learn to understand stories and read images through critical thinking. Such a website helps kids read different words, enhance vocabulary, and also develop an interest in a particular category.
9. Commonlit
This website is a place to browse multiple storybooks, popular texts, and passages for novels. The website interface allows users to browse through content depending on their grade, genre, and subject interests. Each book mentions the grade and type of content in the book. Since books are listed in various categories, each one has different illustrations and important life lessons.
For an additional engaging experience, parents, teachers, or students can log in for free. This free login enables you to listen to the books through an audio system. What’s an interesting part of the books? While kids read these books in the text format, there are certain assessment questions given below. Along with this, difficult words have listed meanings towards the end of the text.
Such a website engages kids to carefully read and elaborate their understanding through answering assessment questions. The meanings of difficult words are also categorized as verbs, adjectives, or nouns enabling kids to better understand grammatical concepts.
10. PBS Learning Media
This is a unique website where you can expose kids to various subject matters that might be tricky to teach. The website focuses on various topics however, kids can benefit from their collection section. Here, there are various videos in a story format dedicated to – Getting Ready for School, Routines and Transitions, Emotions, Building Relationships, and Happy and Healthy Behaviors.
Such a broad category offers rhymes and stories with captions. Here, kids can read along with the videos that are animated and colorful to grasp attention. This website is good for reading because videos are combined with sound, changing scenarios, and easy-to-read captions at the bottom. Certain topics covered on emotional intelligence, empathy, and relationships are helpful for kids to read and comprehend their meanings in an effective manner.
Best ways to use these websites for kids
Kids are not automatically inclined toward a particular activity till the time they find time and interest in it. Parents can initially introduce the art of reading, storytelling, and being imaginative through these websites. Such sites can be the very first step of introducing an imaginary world to the child while keeping it colorful, vibrant, and easy to understand.
These websites can also be used by teachers during reading sessions. While kids are often shown different stories, such websites offer a plethora of stories from across the world. It helps teachers and educators give a universal approach to teaching. You can also ask kids to read along with the audio and that’s how they will learn to sync their audio with the tone, modulation, and pace of the recorded material.
While these websites can be used by parents and teachers, adults involved in homeschooling can also take advantage of such websites. You can present stories and comprehension as a part of an activity. Allow the kids to at least read one story/paragraph in a day and ask them to explain it the next day. Such activity creates involvement, promotes imagination, and enables the child to connect with characters, plot, and different actions.
Summing up..
While reading is a crucial part of learning, reading the right book or paragraph also plays a role in child development. It is important to analyze the type of content each book presents to kids. As kids read, they also comprehend and process the information. Hence, teachers and parents should stay connected with websites that help them find the right books with creative illustrations to engage the child.
Websites are helpful in encouraging kids to read, however, one platform for reading can be a bit monotonous for little ones. In such situations, teachers and parents can always look for different reading activities and online games. Teachers may also include engaging classroom activities for reading as kids are more likely to respond in a challenging activity environment. In the end, kids should be given proper reading material and one should always check if they are able to understand the information.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,