What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (2024)

What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (1)

CommonLitis an online-based literacy resource that offers standards-based training and assessments for students.

Created for students of a wide range, from grade 3 up to grade 12, it covers a lot of reading progression. As such, there is a broad selection of levelled texts of varying types that are available for free.

Built to common-core standards, this can be a useful resource for teachers to add to their current tools. It can also provide a way for students to learn at their own pace outside of the classroom.

Thanks to a clear and easy layout, which is filled with rich content, this is a very appealing way to engage students with reading.

So is CommonLit for you?

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What is CommonLit?

CommonLitis a digital resource for teaching and learning literacy skills. That means it offers a wide selection of common-core standards-aligned reading as well as assessment tools.

What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (2)

CommonLitis web-based and can be accessed from most devices. Everything is helpfully categorized and presented in an intuitive way that makes searching and browsing very easy, even for younger students.

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Texts range from news articles and short stories to poems and historical documents. A selection of curated texts is also available, which organizes information by literary or historical periods, making it all very helpful as teaching resources.

A selection of languages is available, plus speech-to-text, all of which help to make the various texts more widely available to a broad range of students.

How does CommonLit work?

CommonLitallows you to browse by category, with a specific Themes section, but also to filter by features such as grades, genders, lexile range, and more. Or simply type in a specific title to search.

What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (3)

Once you've found what you want to read, select the title to be brought into the lander page. Here you have the option to begin reading right away, to select to have it read aloud, or to translate to another language. You can also download the written content as a PDF if you want to read offline or save it for later.

Tabs across the top provide extra resources, including a Teacher Guide, Parent Guide, Related Media, and Paired Texts. You can adjust font size to suit and favorite to come back to later. The option to share is also available, ideal for teachers who want to distribute specific titles to the class, groups, or individual students.

Texts also usually feature images either in-line or to the side, which are a fixed size and generally don't require a fast internet connection or a lot of data to access.

What are the best CommonLit features?

CommonLittranslates texts into more than 13 languages for access immediately, including Spanish, Arabic, and Russian. Each passage usefully comes with annotations that allow students to define words at the click of a button. But you can also make your own annotations -- which is super helpful if you want to leave guidance or instructions for students.

What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (4)

CommonLitalso offers assessments alongside the texts with varying levels, including guidance and discussion. From multiple choice questions to short answers, there are various types of assessment questions that help provide an idea of student understanding. Guiding questions are also available, which can be turned on or off and that students must answer correctly to progress.

The offering of extension texts and related content make for a great way to continue to learn around a subject and also to offer reading for students to continue at home.

Integration tools such as Google Classroom and Clever help to make the process of signing in students easier. Lots of features are in the paid-for premium versions though. More on that next.

How much does CommonLit cost?

CommonLitcomes in various forms with a free option as well as paid-for premium tiers.

The Free account includes the CommonLit Digital Library plus the CommonLit 360 Curriculum.

The Essentials plan, at $2,000 per school, gets you the above plus introductory webinars, priority customer support, ClassLink and Clever rostering integrations, and on-demand professional development.

The Essential Pro tier, at $3,250 per school, gets you all the above plus the CommonLit Assessment Series, Canvas integration, and administrator data.

Go for the Essential Pro Plus package, at $5,500 per school, and you get all the above plus quarterly virtual 360 PD and consulting, and 360 unit skills assessments.

CommonLit best tips and tricks

Use the themes
Work through a theme in a lesson or across a week to explore things such as Family, America, Prejudice and Discrimination, Resilience, and more.

Use Text Set
Select the Text Set feature for 50 options in order of historical period, literary movements, or more, to lay out tasks for the class.

Annotate
Have students use the annotation tool to provide feedback and highlight questions that are needed for you to look at in class so you can help.

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Luke Edwards

Luke Edwards is a freelance writer and editor with more than two decades of experience covering tech, science, and health. He writes for many publications covering health tech, software and apps, digital teaching tools, VPNs, TV, audio, smart home, antivirus, broadband, smartphones, cars and much more.

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What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks (2024)

FAQs

What is CommonLit and How Does It Work? Best Tips and Tricks? ›

CommonLit is an online-based literacy resource that offers standards-based training and assessments for students. Created for students of a wide range, from grade 3 up to grade 12, it covers a lot of reading progression. As such, there is a broad selection of levelled texts of varying types that are available for free.

How to get CommonLit answer key? ›

To view the answers for these questions, click Answer Key in the top right corner of the lesson preview. Please note, answers are only visible to users with confirmed educator accounts. If you cannot view the answer key, please check your email for an email from CommonLit to confirm your account.

How do I get assessment answers on CommonLit? ›

The answers to the assessment questions are found in the Answer Key. You can find the Answer Key at the top of the Student Assignment Preview page. Clicking the Answer Key tab will open a sidebar where you can view the answers to the assessment questions for the Target Lesson.

Does CommonLit save your answers? ›

Yes! Students do not have to finish an assignment on the CommonLit Digital Platform in one sitting. As long as the student clicks the Save and Next button at the bottom of the question after selecting or writing each of their answers, their progress will be saved.

What can teachers see on CommonLit? ›

Student Performance: All Classes

You will see data that shows how all your students are doing at a glance, progress snapshots, high scorers and low scorers, and an assignment breakdown. You will also see standards data, literary versus informational data, and performance over time data.

What are the answer keys? ›

Answer Key is a set of answers corresponding to a question paper which is the set of questions. It shows the correct answer for the questions provided by the question paper.

How do you find the answers to a question? ›

Ask a Q&A site or message board for basic questions or advice. If you have a simple question that could use a variety of perspectives, post it on a Q&A or message board. The website users can give advice as needed and point you in the right direction to solving your problems.

How do I pass my assessment? ›

Tips to Pass the Pre-Employment Assessment Tests
  1. Understand the purpose of the assessment: ...
  2. Be honest: ...
  3. Practice in advance and identify your strengths: ...
  4. Negative marking: ...
  5. Research well: ...
  6. Time your preparation: ...
  7. Brush up technical skills: ...
  8. Understand your potential employer:

How is CommonLit graded? ›

CommonLit reports students' scores on a scale that runs from 150-250, with higher scores indicating higher student performance. Scaled scores account for both the number of questions students answered correctly and the difficulty level of the questions on the test.

What is the best way to answer assessment questions? ›

How to answer assessment questions
  • Ask the employer to give you an idea of what to expect. ...
  • Visualize the information in the question. ...
  • Underline the keywords in the assessment question. ...
  • Do readings before you respond. ...
  • Answering questions in the reverse order. ...
  • Use the elimination process. ...
  • Take personality tests online.
Jun 28, 2024

How does CommonLit work? ›

CommonLit is an online-based literacy resource that offers standards-based training and assessments for students. Created for students of a wide range, from grade 3 up to grade 12, it covers a lot of reading progression. As such, there is a broad selection of levelled texts of varying types that are available for free.

Can teachers see your annotations on CommonLit? ›

Teachers can view students' annotations on CommonLit 360 assignments from the Student Annotations page for the assignment. To get there, go to the Assignments page, select the class, find the assignment, and click the teal bubble with the highlighter icon.

Can students redo a CommonLit assignment? ›

Scroll down to where the student's name and score is, and you should see an Unsubmit button in the Details & Actions column. Click on that button and you will be prompted to unsubmit the assignment. Students will be able to see their previous answers to the assessment questions and redo them.

Can teachers see how long you take on CommonLit? ›

After I assign “The Lottery” to my students, I can monitor their progress on the assignment by going to the Assignment Report. On the Assignment Report page, I can see how many students submitted their work and how many still need to finish.

How much does CommonLit cost? ›

CommonLit Digital, including the CommonLit 360 Curriculum, is 100% free for teachers and students, forever. As a nonprofit, CommonLit's goal is to pay so teachers don't have to.

Is CommonLit evidence based? ›

CommonLit is a proven, evidence-based ELA intervention.

How to copy and paste CommonLit questions? ›

Go to file and click on options on the bottom left. Then on this word options, click on advance. and then scroll down to cut, copy and paste.

Should we scoff at the idea of love at first sight CommonLit answers? ›

Ultimately, whether we scoff at the idea of love at first sight or not is subjective and depends on individual beliefs and experiences. While some people may dismiss it as unrealistic or superficial, others may have experienced it themselves or believe in the power of instant connections.

How do I get CommonLit to read to me? ›

To use the Read Aloud feature, have students log into CommonLit > go to their assignment > and then click the Read Aloud button to open an audio player for the text. Students can click play to hear the text read from the beginning, or from where they last left off during a previous session.

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