WhizRead looks like an apparently free online reading comprehension tool that would work well with ELLs and others.

Even though all the photos on the site show it as an iPad app, it also works on any computer (though I’m not sure if some of its functionality is limited there).  But it seems fine.

Students can choose texts from a Kindergarten to Grade Six reading level, it’s attractively designed, provides audio support for text, and students can take a comprehension quiz.

You can’t create a virtual classroom to monitor student work, unfortunately.

Our district uses the fairly dysfunctional National Geo online assessments and, even though it’s just one data point, and a barely functional one at that, its results are making me wonder if I should have students spend a bit more time on reading comprehension.

Students now spend about fifteen minutes each day working on True Stories books with peer tutors, and probably about another fifteen minutes every other day reading books of their choice with peer tutors.  They do lots of other reading, but more on the sentence level.

So, I’m thinking of adding another fifteen minutes a day of them using either WhizRead or Raz-Kids, at least for the next couple of months until we do the National Geo assessment again to see if there is more improvement in reading comprehension than there has been in the past.

So much to cover in such little time!

I’m adding this info to: