Sim

Siimp

Simple News stories

http://www.simpleenglishnews.com/

Simple (As in only about three sentences!) news stories with the option to listen, some vocabulary highlights.

 

Literacy Net

http://literacynet.org/cnnsf/archives.html

Mildly outdated intermediate-level stories from CNN, with great exercises, including comprehension, sequencing, conclusions and vocabulary work.  Can read the full text, an abridged text, or see an outline.

 

MORE ADVANCED

 

The Times in Plain English

https://www.thetimesinplainenglish.com/

This is the New York Times, simplified to a low-intermediate level.

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5-Minute English

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/reading.htm

These are quite short reading exercises, with short comprehension exercises (thus, the name "5-minute")  Even though these are short, they are more appropriate for intermediate + readers due to the lexical complexity.

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EFL Club biographies

http://www.eflclub.com/people/people.html

Only five biographies here so far (Che Guevara, Princess Diana, Albert Einstein & JK Rowling) , but great stand-alone lessons with tons of vocabulary, vocab exercises, comprehension questions, and a video link with its own activities!

 

News English Lessons

http://www.newsenglishlessons.com/

These very short, rather basic, news stories come with a wide variety of activities for teachers to use with them: Cloze exercise, vocab, spelling, listening and conversation activities.

 

Breaking News English

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

This site is almost exactly like the one above, but the exercises are more advanced even though the news story is almost the same length as those from the site above.

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Excelsior College Online Writing Lab

https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/

This site has an excellent and broad range of reading comprehension exercises, from previewing, asking questions, summarizing, paraphrasing. Has video for each lesson with a printable transcript.

 

Cengage Learning

 http://college.cengage.com/collegesurvival/watkins/learning_companion/1e/students/timed_reading.html

This e-learning site has timed readings for short passages, but the comprehension questions section is no longer working.

 

Extraordinary People From Around the World:A Downloadable Reader with Discussion Questions

http://pats-eduent.net/xpeople_intro.htm

This online "book" highlights international heroes from a variety of countries.  The readings are about three pages long and have discussion questions, but no language work.

 

English Works! Reading and Mapping strategies

http://www.gallaudet.edu/tutorial-and-instructional-programs/english-center/reading---english-as-second-language/reading-and-mapping-strategies

Nice site that teaches students to analyze essays.  This is also a great writing site.

 

E-Reading Summarizing

https://www.ereadingworksheets.com/free-reading-worksheets/reading-comprehension-worksheets/summarizing-worksheets-and-activities/

Lots of handouts (with answers) for learning to write summaries of texts.

 

How stuff works

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Not designed for ESL, but very interesting short reading blurbs on inventions, etc.