Free Reading Websites for Elementary Students
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Spending time on reading websites is a great way for students to practice literacy skills. Online resources can save time while keeping learning interesting. However, it isn’t always easy to find educational websites that are actually worth exploring.
It is a frustrating reality that often programs are free for professional educators, but pricey for homeschool educators. It is tricky to find free content that is also high-quality!
This list contains reading websites that offer free access for homeschool families and teachers.
They may have the option to pay for increased resources, but at least part of the site is free. If you do decide to splurge on the premium versions, be sure to check for a free trial.
These reading websites contain a variety of phonemic awareness games, online books, and virtual storytimes.
Free Reading Websites for Elementary Students
Starfall
Starfall is an educational website for beginning readers. I used this free site all the time when I was a classroom kindergarten teacher. The goal is to help young children improve their reading skills through games.
Some of the topics include:
- ABCs – Letters of the alphabet are introduced and students are given the opportunity to sort capital and lowercase letters.
- Learn to Read – There are games and short books to practice specific literacy skills like vowels, silent e, and vowel teams.
- It’s Fun to Read – Kids read short stories (fiction and nonfiction). They can click on any of the words to hear it read aloud.
- I’m Reading – Kids can read a variety of short stories with more text per page. They still have the option to click and hear a sentence read.
- Short Vowels – Young learners can try either the short vowel machine or the short vowel pals. In each area, they can listen to short vowel sounds and read words or short sentences.
- Backpack Bear’s Books – Children can build and read simple sentences that are made from sight words.
- Talking Library – Books are shown and read aloud. The text is highlighted on the screen so children can follow along.
There are no ads on Starfall, so I consider it a pretty safe website for children.
Magic Tree House Kids
Magic Tree House Kids has two areas that will be of interest to elementary students:
- Kids Adventure Club
- Mission Game
The Kids Adventure Club encourages kids to read the Magic Tree House books. If they create a free account they can log the pages they have read in each book. They can also take a quiz for each title.
The Mission Game allows kids who have read a variety of Magic Tree House books to complete missions by answering questions. The questions are multiple-choice, so kids might be able to answer without reading the books, but reading will certainly help.
Homeschool parents and teachers, there are also free resources that align with each book under the teacher tab. These can be great resources when lesson planning.
Magic Tree House is a great website for fans of the books.
Storyline Online
Storyline Online shares videos of celebrities reading popular picture books. For example,
- Betty White reads Harry the Dog
- Kevin Costner reads Catching the Moon
- Kristen Bell reads Quakenstein Hatches a Family
- Oprah Winfrey reads Hula-Hoopin’ Queen
- Seth Meyers reads I’m Not Scared, YOU’RE Scared
You can search by celebrity, book title, or author.
Watching the stories be read is a great option for kids who love storytime. Each storytime session lasts 10 – 20 minutes, so parents can actually have a few minutes to catch up on laundry or sit with a hot cup of tea.
Each storytime video also has free teacher resources that are specific to that book.
Storyline Online produces high-quality videos, so they release videos for new books a few times a year.
PBS Kids
Many parents are familiar with the shows and characters found on the PBS Kids channel. Those same characters can be found in educational games at PBSKids.org.
You can search for the best games by theme or subject. The interactive games best suited for reading and language arts will be found in:
- Reading games
- Rhyming games (rhyming is a literary skill)
- ABC games
Once you are in the right subject area, you, or your child, can see all of the relevant games. There are options for just about every character.
This seems like a great option for kids who have favorite PBS Kids characters. It is easy to click out of one game and into another though, so you might want to supervise if there is a specific game you want your kids to play.
Khan Academy Kids
I debated whether to include Khan Academy Kids on this list of reading websites for elementary students because it is technically an app, not a website. However, it is a really high-quality free educational reading resource, so I decided to share it. I even signed up for an account so I could test it out.
Once you sign up and enter the app you can choose a few content areas. The ones centered around reading are:
- Books – a few different reading levels
- Letters
- Reading
The books section is like a digital library. There are a TON of books. Some are stories with lessons, early readers sorted by grade level, books about feelings, animal stories, science readers, National Geographic Young Explorer topics, alphabet stories, and even stories written in Spanish.
The letters section focuses on letter identification, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, letter sounds, vowels, CVC words, beginning sounds, and ending sounds. Games reinforce phonics skills to boost retention.
The reading section focuses on foundational skills for reading such as diagraphs and blends, grammar, and sight words. There are also books for kids to practice reading. The reading section can be sorted by grade level (pre-k – 2nd grade).
Storynory
Storynory is a website that hosts free audiobooks for kids. You can listen directly from the webpage or download the story.
There are a few different types of audiobooks available:
- Original stories – These are stories that are owned exclusively by Storynory.
- Fairy tales – Here you will find classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson, the Grimm brothers, Aesop, and more. Please keep in mind that traditional fairy tales can be darker than modern versions. I recommend listening before letting little ears hear the stories.
- Myths and world – These are myths and stories from around the globe. They would complement a geography unit really well!
- Educational – This is an assorted collection of stories with lessons.
- Poems and rhymes – Here you will find poems and nursery rhymes.
StoryPlace
StoryPlace is a product of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library. I think the intended purpose is to host the calendar for their in-person storytimes, they do offer a few resources for parents out of the Charlotte NC area. These stories and activities are probably best for preschool and kindergarten children.
There are a few themes for young children to choose from. Within each theme, there is at least one video storytime, online activity, printable activity, and book list.
Readworks
Readworks is a free literacy website for kids of all ages. There are resources for grades K – 12. You do have to sign up for an account to view the material, but it is totally free.
This is a reading website that doesn’t lend itself to sporadic viewing. In order to enable some of the features like the student library, the parent will need to set up a ‘class’. This isn’t hard, but if you go through the trouble of setting everything up, you might as well make it a part of your regular language arts lesson plans.
There are books and quizzes for Kindergarten and up, but I personally think many early elementary kids might struggle navigating and reading the site. It is probably better for upper elementary kids.
Inside Readworks you will find:
- Student library
- Fun with vocabulary
- Book studies
- Leveled text
Oxford Owl
Oxford Owl offers a free eBook library with kid-friendly titles. You do need to sign up for an account to open the books, but the account is free.
The stories can be read independently like eBooks or listened to as an audiobook. There is a digital bookmark in case you need to come back to the story later and a virtual highlighter if you want to highlight words or phrases.
The bookshelf is easy to navigate, but the ‘buy’ button is really close to the ‘read’ button. There are still a few steps between clicking the buy button and actually purchasing the book, but parents might want to help the first-time young children navigate the site.
Just Books Read Aloud
Just Books Read Aloud is exactly what the name implies, just books. There are no flashy games, but there are free books that kids will want to read.
You can sort, or find, books by:
- Author
- Narrator
- Length of book
- Category
- Reading level
When kids choose a book they can watch the story being read on YouTube. This is a bit safer than letting young children watch read-aloud stories directly on YouTube because it prevents them from accidentally navigating to non-kid-friendly content.
Dogo News
Dogo News is part reading website and part social studies website. It is a place where kids can read news articles that are written for children. The topics include:
- Current events
- Science
- Social Studies
- Civics
- World
- Environment
It is also possible to sort the news articles by word count, something reluctant readers might appreciate.
The free version of Dogo News allows everyone to read the original article. A premium membership lets students can read the original or simplified version. They can also choose to listen instead of read.
Reading Bear
Reading Bear is a website that teaches phonics in a systematic way. Kids begin by sounding out CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words with varying speeds. They can also watch a video of a person making the letter sound.
At the end of every lesson, there is a short quiz. After five lessons, there is a review section.
This isn’t the most engaging website, but it is a quick and simple way to learn or review phonics.
Read Theory
Read Theory is an educational website that is dedicated to improving reading comprehension skills.
Homeschool parents have the option to sign up as a parent or as a teacher. The teacher profile allows you to see progress reports for each student. This report tells you which quizzes the student has taken, the reading level, and the Lexile level. This is a handy feature if you want to track student progress.
The website automatically assigns reading passages and comprehension questions to every student. There is the option to assign specific reading material with the premium account.
One thing I really like is that this is one of the few reading websites that cater to students at all different levels. There are reading comprehension passages for grades K – 12.
Storytime From Space
This is a great site for kids who love space or astronauts. Storytime From Space features videos of astronauts reading picture books while they are in space.
The storytime video library shows the run time before clicking into the video. This is great if you are on a time crunch. You can select just the books that fit your allotted time. Most seem to run 10 – 15 minutes.
The storytimes from this website would be a great addition to an elementary solar system unit.
Related: Educational Solar System Activities
FableReads
FableReads is a totally free website that specializes in fables for kids. There are fables from around the world, which would be a great addition to geography lessons! Fables can also be sorted according to the lesson or theme.
Each fable is available in three formats – basic, fun, and rhyme. You can choose to read one format, or read multiple formats and compare the stories. Each fable also includes a few reflection questions.
FableReads would be a great addition to any geography unit or language arts fables lesson plan, but could also just be a fun place to read.
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