Developed by The Screen Actors Guild Foundation, Storyline Online features accomplished actors and actresses reading some of their favorite children’s books. Each story comes with a free Activity Guide and can be viewed on YouTube or SchoolTube. Rainbow Fish, Wilfrid Gordon Macdonald Partridge, and To Be a Drum are just a few of the books available.
Founded in 2008, freechildrenstories.com operates on the simple principle that children’s development is paramount. Their mission is to offer traditional, meaningful storytelling to every child, parent, or teacher around the globe with access to the internet, for free.
Discover books from around the world at the International Children’s Digital Library. The free site does not read the books aloud, but students can read them independently during Read to Self or free time. This is a great site for extension activities when learning about different regions of the world and can be used effectively into the middle school grades.
Storynory features a collection of original, fairy tale, and classic children’s audio stories. Students can follow along with the story as it is read to them, as the text is also included on the site. There are also some great features available that give you the option of downloading the audio to your computer, listening to “catch phrase” explanations, translating text into different languages (especially helpful for your ELL students!), and more.
