Finding high-quality books for your classroom can be a challenging and costly endeavor. But what if you could find free books for your classroom online? There are many websites that offer a wide selection of free books that are perfect for use in the classroom. These include books that are part of the public domain or those that connect to sources with licensed content for wide distribution.
In this blog post, I’ll share a handful of websites you can use to find free books for your classroom.
3 Reasons to Find Free Books for Your Classroom
There are several reasons why it is useful to be able to locate free books on the Internet to share with your students. For example, you might want to supplement your instruction, find resources that meet the needs of individual students, or locate high-interest content that isn’t readily available at your school.
Cost-effective
One of the main benefits of finding free books online is that it allows you to provide your students with a wide range of reading materials without incurring additional costs. This is especially useful for teachers with limited or no budget for purchasing books and other classroom materials. If you are on the hunt for supplemental materials, this is certainly a cost-effective way to go about it.
Accessibility
Many free online books are available in digital formats, which means that students can access them from anywhere and on any device. In some cases, students can download them for offline reading or use them in conjunction with platforms that support accessible features. This can be especially helpful for students who may not have access to physical books or who may prefer to read on a tablet or e-reader.
Variety
Many free books are available online, covering a wide range of genres and topics. This allows teachers to offer their students a diverse selection of reading materials, which can help keep them engaged and motivated to read. In addition, this is a great option if you are searching for reading material on a topic that isn’t covered in your classroom or school library.
Knowing where to go to locate websites where you can find free books is certainly useful. Teachers can provide students with a wide range of reading materials at no additional cost.
13 Websites with Free Books for Your Classroom
Storyline Online
For read-aloud videos and extra teacher resources, check out Storyline Online. It is full of picture books read aloud by actors, along with animations. You can share the video versions of these picture books by sharing the YouTube link to each video.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg Is a digital library of over 60,000 free eBooks. You can explore each one in different formats, including a free ePub format and Kindle eBooks, so you can download them or read them online.
ABCMouse
Did you know that ABCMouse has free resources for teachers? This includes hundreds of books you can access for free. Although this blog post is from a few years ago, it still gives you an overview and a special link to a page with more information.
International Children’s Digital Library
In this online library, you’ll find a collection of books in multiple languages. The quality varies, and you may find that it’s a bit overwhelming at first glance, but you can search by title, language, and genre.
Epic!
With Epic!, educators can access thousands of books to share with their students for free. This website (and mobile app) has lots of high-quality, engaging texts for readers. There is a consumer version of this tool, so make sure you click here to access the educator page.
Open Library
Open Library is a collaborative project with free books available to read online. You might find that this is a resource you recommend to families to explore so they can set up an account at home.
ReadingIQ
A few years ago, I shared ReadingIQ on the blog, and it’s still an excellent choice for setting up students with access to books for free. You can learn more about ReadingIQ in this blog post which shares more information on how to get started.
Google Books
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m a fan of all things Google, from Google Podcasts to Google Slides. But have you heard of Google Books? Of course, not everything is free here, but it also gives you information on where to find books, including your local library.
ManyBooks
ManyBooks is full of resources in the public domain that you can download to read offline or read online. It’s an ad-supporting website, so you might find that it’s a better fit for you to find books to share with students as opposed to a place for them to search through.
OER Commons
Another place to go to find free books is OER Commons. There are lots of resources on this website, but it’s a great option if you are looking for something pretty specific and want to use its advanced search features.
Lit2Go
With Lit2Go, you can access texts in a variety of formats for online and offline reading and listening. This page will take you to all the ways you can interact with text, including a full list of books.
Amazon Kindle Freebies
If you are using Kindles with students or working with families that use this device at home, you may want to bookmark this page with Free Kindle Books from Amazon. The selection varies greatly, but it is a spot you may want to peek at every once in a while to see what they are currently offering.
Sora
Sora allows schools to start with a “no-cost collection” and add on if they desire. This page gives you more information on how to activate Sora for your school. It will ask you to fill out some information to get started with Sora at your school.
Ways to Respond to Reading
Regular readers of the blog know that I love sharing ways for students to respond to reading. You might have students journal about their reading experiences using a tool like Book Creator. Or you might ask students to share what they’ve learned using one of the formative assessment strategies on this list.
If you are interested in having students respond to their reading experiences in comic format, you can download these free comic pages. Or, if you’d like to have students make a movie to retell a passage from a book, these graphic organizers are perfect for student moviemakers.
By making use of these websites, teachers can easily access a wide range of free books for their classrooms. These books can support independent reading experiences, differentiated instruction, classroom discussions, and more! If you have a favorite online resource or website to find free books, make sure to share it on social media (like Instagram) and tag me @ClassTechTips.
Note: This blog post was written with some help from ChatGPT for inspiration and assistance with the writing process. This tool has been in the news, and I’m trying it out to learn more about it and the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education.
