Free Articles for Tweens and More

Engaging students during the middle school years can be tough. Here's one great resource we recommend for finding articles for tweens.

Watch above as SimpleK12's Teacher Learning Community Trainer Monica Burns shares how to articles for tweens using Smithsonian Tween Tribune.

Tween Tribune publishes a new article each day sourced from the Associated Press. You can select a couple of different lexile level options for each article, making it easy to scale the word count and vocabulary up or down as needed for your students. Each article also includes a self-scoring quiz and critical thinking questions.

One of my favorite things about this website is you don't need to register or create an account to take advantage of all the great articles. However, you and your students can set up free accounts if you'd like to take advantage of even more features of the site (for example, if you'd like to assign articles to students, and view their quiz results automatically).

For more reading resources for tweens and beyond, take a look at this training session, Raising Readers: Promoting Literacy Development at Home. Studies show that parental involvement is highly correlated with student success, but convincing a reluctant, struggling, or discouraged reader to read outside of the school day is often difficult. In this highly practical session, experienced literacy coaches Terry Dobson and Heather Baptie show how you can help eliminate homework battles with a blend of traditional and digital tools. They will share a “tradigital” tool box of easy-to-implement strategies and resources can be used at home or at school to build confidence, develop literacy skills, and foster a love of reading.

What reading resources do you like to use with your students? Share a link to your favorite in a comment on this article.

About Our “Articles for Tweens” Presenter
Monica Burns is an Education Consultant, EdTech Blogger, and Apple Distinguished Educator. Monica works with teachers to make technology integration exciting and accessible at all grade levels. She has conducted well over 40 unique training sessions for SimpleK12, click here to take a look at more videos from Monica.

About the Author
Kimber Thompson is a Lead Moderator for SimpleK12 webinars and a Contributing Editor for SimpleK12.com. She writes frequently about education topics, and is passionate about tools and techniques that inspire young learners. You may reach her with ideas and comments at editor@simplek12.com.