cerca

ThinkCERCA lets you set-up free virtual classrooms for monitoring student practice and assign a large variety of short, engaging, articles along with comprehension questions. Even better for English Language Learners, audio support is provided for the text. The reading passages are assigned a range of grades that they are supposedly appropriate for but those grade levels don’t show-up in the student view. This is a particularly important feature for ELLs who are often reading far below grade level, but don’t need to be reminded of it all the time.

Think Cerca’s premium version provides what looks like some intriguing supported writing extensions for their reading passages, but it doesn’t indicate the cost for those features. Fairly or unfairly, I’m always suspicious when sites don’t clearly state their prices and instead ask you register for a “demo.”

I’ll certainly be having my ELL students try the site out after we return from break — it’s simple for teachers to create multiple classrooms and even easier for students to register for them.

I’m adding this post to The Best Sites That Students Can Use Independently And Let Teachers Check On Progress.

I learned about the site through a post at the Gates Foundation, which you can read if you’d like to learn more about their premium features.