Tuesday, October 17, 2017

FREE e-Book Resources for Kids and Teens

It is known by many that the use of e-books can offer real benefits to children who struggle to read for a variety of reasons. The ability to adjust e-page backgrounds to other colors than white, change font sizes and more can often help challenged readers with such issues as visual fatigue, convergence insufficiency and other issues. In addition, just one e-reader can contain and offer an entire family a smorgasbord of book titles to satisfy a variety of children's (and parents') reading needs---from books for emergent readers to mysteries appropriate for teen readers and others.

In this post, we wanted to provide some FREE e-book resources to offer families who wish to promote literacy in their homes for all ages of children. We hope you will value and perhaps even save the link to this page as a future reference for all your family's e-reading needs.

FREE e-Book Resources for Kids & Teens

Open e-Books-This program does require parents to reach out to a teacher, librarian, or other eligible person to sign up for First Book. This will then allow parents to obtain a code that will give each child access to 10 books at a time via the FREE Open e-Books app. This excellent program is available to low-income families with kids ages 4-18 and it is filled with books that are still in copyright – which means a large collection of bestsellers and contemporary titles. Worth the time to take a look!
http://openebooks.net/

International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL)-The non-profit ICDL Foundation’s library has evolved into the world’s largest digital collection of children’s books. Currently, its digital library collection includes 4,619 books in 59 languages. The complete ICDL collection is also available as a FREE iPad app. A limited number of titles are included in the FREE ICDL iPhone app. The ICDL also created the FREE Story Kit app that helps users create their own electronic storybooks for reading and sharing. http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

Library of Congress-The Library of Congress’ selection of digitized books includes illustrated children’s classics for readers of all ages. The Library of Congress also makes available millions of primary sources for FREE online. To assist educators in teaching with primary sources, the Library offers classroom materials to help teachers engage students with content and develop critical thinking skills.
http://www.read.gov/books/

Best Free Children's e-Books Online-This is a listing of 234 sites that legally offer FREE e-books for children to read.
https://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-childrens-ebooks-online.htm

Best FREE Kindle e-Books for Children-FREE classic Kindle e-book titles for kids from Goodreads.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/21465.Best_FREE_Kindle_Ebooks_for_Children_

FREE Kindle e-Books for Teens-This is a PDF document from tcea.org with clickable links to FREE e-books for teens ready to be read on a Kindle. (May also be read on other devices with the free Kindle app. Please see link below under Other e-Book Resources to Help Promote Literacy.)
https://www.tcea.org/documents/PD/Free%20Kindle%20eBooks%20for%20Teens.pdf


epic! (30-day FREE trial-Instantly access 25,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes & more for kids 12 & under.
https://www.getepic.com/

Bookshare-A FREE program supported by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs that provides FREE reading materials to anyone who has a print disability that keeps them from reading traditional print materials. An eligible Bookshare member would be someone with a visual impairment, a physical disability that impinges on reading ability, or a learning disability.
https://www.bookshare.org/cms/bookshare-me

Project Gutenberg-Project Gutenberg has 50,000 free ebooks to download or read online. These are books whose copyright has expired, so while they are not “trending,” they do include many classics.
http://www.gutenberg.org/

Online Books Page at University of Pennsylvania-Although a bit of a bugger to navigate, the Online Books Page at the University of Penn has an amazing collection of kids literature available! The link provided will take you to the children’s bookshelf, however you can browse by alphabetical listing or even search to discover new topics!
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Children%27s%20books

Books Should Be Free-Perfect for introducing a child who is not yet reading or who enjoys listening to stories to literature! Books Should Be Free offers a wide selection of FREE audio and e-books including many of the classics. They also have e-book formats for Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Nook, Sony Reader and laptops.
For Children: http://www.loyalbooks.com/genre/Children
For Teens & Young Adults: http://www.loyalbooks.com/genre/Teen_Young_adult

BookBub-FREE e-books for teens and young adults (requires submission of email address for registration)
https://www.bookbub.com

FREE e-Books for Kids-A collection of FREE e-books for children from Amazon (for Kindle). The selections available may be FREE for a limited time. It is advisable to check daily for new FREE titles. See left sidebar on web page for various genres and topics currently available at no cost.
https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=free+ebooks+for+kids&tag=geminimobiles-20&index=digital-text&hvadid=22381588&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_62sj6d2bod_e

MeeGenius-MeeGenius makes it easy to keep your child reading by offering hundreds of e-books including classics, MeeGenius originals, and partner content from Sesame Street, Dr. Seuss, and P.D. Eastman. Starting out as an iPad/iPhone app, MeeGenius has been a favorite of many families for years! While not all e-books are available for FREE, there's a wide variety of FREE e-books.
http://www.meegenius.com/

Oxford Owl Free e-Book Library-Oxford Owl has a great variety of books for kids ages 3–11. The books marked with an ‘e’ are the FREE books. The site has some really amazing features like offering activity ideas that go with the books. With some books in the youngest (ages 3–5) and oldest (ages 9–11) age groups, there aren’t any words shown on the screen. You only hear the story. Nevertheless, this is a good site if you’re looking for access to stories (both fiction & non-fiction) for a variety of ages. https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/home/reading-owl/find-a-book/library-page

Kids World Fun-An enjoyable array of FREE, animated books!
http://www.kidsworldfun.com/ebooks.php

Children’s Books Online-This Rosetta Project site is an online library of antique illustrated children’s books. Selections are indexed by reading level: pre-reader, emergent reader, intermediate reader, advanced reader, adult reader & foreign language reader.
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library.htm

Classic Reader-Classic Reader is an excellent place to find FREE classic e-books. The site has a special section for young readers with more than 200 of the world’s best loved classics.
http://www.classicreader.com/browse/3/title/

Magic Keys-This site offers FREE illustrated e-books for children of all ages. Storybooks are separated into three categories: young children, older children, and young adult. Other site offerings include online games, jigsaw puzzles, and interactive coloring pages.
http://www.magickeys.com/books/

Read Print-The Read Print library hosts thousands of FREE e-books and poems, many of which are suitable for children. Most of the books on Read Print are classics, such as Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
http://www.readprint.com/

Other e-Book Resources to Help Promote Literacy

Read Ups-A great site for older children who want to find, read, and discuss books. The site allows you to read books on the site or import books from the web or your hard drive. Read Up books can be read alone or with a group of people. The site does require a Twitter account.
http://www.readups.com/

FREE Kindle Reading App- You can install this very useful yet FREE app on most devices (iPad, Mac, PC, Android, etc.) so that the device "becomes" a Kindle in function. We have the Kindle app installed on our PCs here in the office and use it daily. The number of FREE e-books that can be found for your Kindle on Amazon.com (in the daily deals section) is almost endless!
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-app/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Akindle%20app

Sources:

How to Find Free e-Books for Kids — Copyrighted Titles Included!
http://parentingchaos.com/finding-free-ebooks-for-kids/

For more tools & resources to help improve reading & spelling skills, visit:
www.FocusandRead.com Tools for struggling readers of all ages!
www.BrennanInnovators.com Info & support for struggling readers
314-892-3897

Image sources:
Brennan Innovators, LLC at www.focusandread.com AND
Pixabay.com at https://pixabay.com