 and welcome to this week's Wednesday webinar given by Mali Asha. This week's webinar is about online tools for differentiating reading levels of current events or non-fiction web articles. This slideshow can be found at bit.ly backslash uppercase w w underscore uppercase r e a d so it's Wednesday webinar underscore read and it is case sensitive but you'll be able to find it there and then you'll have the links to the online products that I'm going to show you. All right these online tools there's others out there these are just five of my favorites and they're all free some of them have a paid part but what I'll be showing you and what I've found very useful is just the free parts of the tools and so I will just go down through them and kind of talk about them and show you what you can do with them. We will start with rewordify I haven't really had it pulled up here so you can create a free account I'm already logged in and with this there's a lot you can do I'm just going to show you some of the basic stuff and you can just cut and paste text and it will simplify it so I went online and found an online history book and it comes from ushistory.org I'm just going to pick one of these and let's look at the Townshend X I guess I clicked maybe the Boston Patriots we'll see what comes up all right it was the Boston Patriots so if I was student and they're reading this text and it's too hard for them it could be text from an article it could be text anywhere you can find printed text you can do this so I just highlight it I'll stop right there and I'll copy it I'll go back to my rewordify paste it in and tell it to rewordify the text and so what it does is it takes that text and where it highlights it's changed something so we should have read a little bit before so you can see so here's the original text and it says the American Revolution was not simply a series of impersonal events men and women made fateful often difficult decisions that led to the great clash so if we go back and they've reworded that saying the American Revolution was not simply a series of emotionally cool and not friendly events men and women worked made unlucky often hard decisions that led to great fights or disagreements so it shows how it's changed and simplified that text pretty basic there are some learning activities in with it kids can create their own accounts and then if I go back here to home there's ways that once they're logged in they can keep track of what they've read and its difficulty level and so forth come down here but basically that's just what I was I was wanting to show you it's a great way to quickly translate that text to help students understand it it's probably the most basic of them that's why I started with this one all right the next one is New Zealand and I have it pulled up here so we'll just go to it once again I created a free account it does have a pro version but what I'm going to show you you don't need the pro version for and so I'm going to go to the library and it has all these different topics I'm going to stick with US history it's on my mind today all right as it's coming up here it has different articles I'm going to look at this article how presidential assassinations change US politics so I'm going to click on it all right so here's the original article it gives your word count the text level is six we'll write up here if you look it has a nine hundred fifty lexile level and you don't necessarily have to know your students lexile levels but if this article is too difficult for them four US presidents have been murdered while in office all brought down by gunfire reforms in a new political direction followed each of these presidential assassinations and that's going to be a little bit difficult if you look up here you can change that lexile level so I'm going to change it down to the 540 lexile level now we're at 526 word count come down here and I look at it four US presidents have been murdered while in office all were killed by gunfire what followed their deaths changed American history so it really brings it down a lot of times they'll take out big adjectives or or words that add meaning but don't necessarily have to be there to get the understanding of the article so it's a great way you can then print them what I like about this is kids don't have to know that you have changed up the levels if that's something that you're wanting to them to do if you're going to print a copy of this you can print each of them they'll look the same they'll have the pictures they'll just the actual text will be different and kids don't even know that they're getting something different than the other kids so another great way you can also create assignments from it I can add create an assignment to go with this and then have them assign it so I like this one just being able to change it up quickly on the flash like that you can search for news articles I like that they have a huge library of things already there that I can look up pertaining to what what I'm studying next one is the Smithsonian tween Tribune I thought I was already signed in get signed back in all right so here's something I can create a classroom it works with Google classroom and I can assign things that way I'm just going to go back to the homepage right now all right so you can see you can find articles for all grade levels you can find them in Spanish and once again here it's the ability to change up that reading level of an article the same article kids can get the same information it's just at different reading levels this one also some of them have quizzes made that the students can take also if you are assigning them through Google classroom you can assign students different levels lexile levels to read so another way to just make it easier for your students that have difficulty with reading levels so I can assign the story I can start off taking the quiz here it is it shows me the lexile level it is I can change that up even even if you give it to kids at one level and and they're feeling maybe they're not getting it you can switch it over to a different level next one is readworks what I like about these next two they really add one more level of assistance or accommodation for students and that is that it can read to them all right so I am logged in as the teacher and I can assign things digitally I can print it out or I can use it through projection which is really nice so here are the main articles or the main ways I can find articles I'm going to stay with social studies I can pick a grade level do more searching that way but let's just look at this Native American conflicts one all right so right now it is for ninth and tenth grade level 554 words 1340 lexile level it's nonfiction the vocab so here's some information here like I said what I like about this is it brings this added accommodation of it will read the article to the kids prior to european settlement in north america making native american tribes populated specific areas of the continent not the most exciting but it it's there from this there some of them have questions made I can assign this I think I set up so this is through google classroom I can assign it that way I could also just get the the link and give it to kids if I'm doing it that way by email I can share it that way if I was going to print it it I can print with answers without or lines for kids to write on but it takes out some of that advertisement around the edges if I'm going to project it takes it away blows it up it's all ready for projection so I like those options too but I really like the option to be able to read it or have kids read listen to it that is reading works org and the last one common lit probably becoming my favorite so I am logged in I was at my library and already found an article that I clicked on but I want to show you here that it has things from third through twelfth grade so you can browse by grade level you can browse by topic I just picked a spooky story so that was one of the first things they had there a spooky story what I like about common lit there's so much I can do once again I can listen to it and listen to this this gal reads much better in this amusing short story a boy believes he hears a ghost in his house as you read take notes on how the author develops the humor in this short story so I think it reads a little bit better and it highlights the words as it reads you can keep track and watch it as it goes another accommodation that kids might need I can download as a pdf I can assign it through Google classroom again kids though have the option of highlighting text looking upwards defining them a lot of great options over here has some guiding questions there is a little assessment a quiz at the end you can do some discussion with it by far one of the most elaborate tools online tools I'm showing today you can change font size just immediately like that so I really really like all of those depending on what you need if you're on the fly you just need to change up the vocab or see the highlighting like the basics that we saw in rewordify that might be what you need but I would love to hear your comments when you've tried these or let me know how you've used them because I like to share that with other teachers or if you have any questions please let me know but I hope you use these online tools to help your students make reading non-fiction text a little bit easier for them finish here with my information contacting me if you have any questions or you want some help setting these up please don't hesitate to call me have a great week