Archive

Student Reading Growth During the 2025-2026 School Year

A study of the 2025-2026 school year showed that CommonLit usage predicted reading growth CommonLit conducts an annual study that examines the reading growth of students who took the...

10 Short Stories Elementary School Teachers Love (and What to Teach With Each)

Ten free CommonLit short stories for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, from a goldfish named Dog to a marbles championship, plus what each one teaches best. A girl asks for...

10 Free Short Stories for Middle School Students (and What to Teach With Each)

A roundup of 10 free CommonLit short stories for grades 6-8, with what each one is best for teaching. A good short story can get a room of 12-...

5 Free Texts that Get Middle Schoolers Excited About Reading

Getting middle schoolers excited about reading can be hard, but it doesn't take a magic trick, just a text that feels like one they'd pick themselves....

5 Free Texts that Get High Schoolers Excited About Reading

You know the look. Chin on fist, one eye on the clock, someone asking if this will be on the test. Getting high schoolers excited about reading doesn't...

5 Free Texts that Get Elementary Students Excited About Reading

Five free CommonLit texts for third through fifth grade, from dogs with opinions about their owners to a shark with a bad reputation, plus what to teach with each one....

10 Free Short Stories for High School Students (and What to Teach With Each)

Ten free CommonLit short stories for 9th and 10th grade, from a town stuck in a haunting to a chess set that says more than it should, plus what each...

How to Implement CommonLit 360 Schoolwide with CommonLit Core

Get the professional learning, unit assessments and data tracking your team needs to successfully implement CommonLit’s comprehensive ELA curriculum! At CommonLit, we’re committed to ensuring that all students...

What Is CommonLit Spark? Assessments, Data, and PD for Schools and Districts

Unlock school and district-wide access to professional development, benchmark assessments, data tracking tools, and onboarding support to ensure success with CommonLit’s digital literacy program! CommonLit is an online...

Announcing Updated CommonLit 360 Units for Grades 11 and 12

CommonLit 360 is a comprehensive, full-year ELA curriculum for grades 6-12 designed to support student growth in reading, writing, and speaking and listening skills. Our curriculum provides teachers...

What to Know Before Piloting an ELA Curriculum

A demo can tell you a lot. But it can't tell you whether your eighth graders are still engaged in week four, whether your newest teacher can plan...

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with 10 Inspiring Texts

These engaging texts help students explore identity, family, and belonging through Hispanic and Latino voices and experiences. Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 to October 15, is an...

8 New Texts About AI, Social Media, and Algorithms for Secondary Classrooms

Your students already have opinions about this stuff. They know which app is dying, which one their parents don't understand, and exactly how long they spent on their...

How to Teach The Great Gatsby: A Full 5- to 7-Week Unit, Plus 5 Book Pairing Lessons

Whether you're building a complete Great Gatsby unit from scratch or already teaching it and need support for specific chapters, here's what CommonLit offers for both....

How to Teach Frankenstein: A Full 5- to 7-Week Unit, Plus 5 Book Pairing Lessons

Whether you're building a complete Frankenstein unit from scratch or already teaching it and need support for specific chapters, here's what CommonLit offers for both. Victor...

5 Text Lessons to Pair With Beowulf

Beowulf fights a monster, then the monster's mother, then waits fifty years and fights a dragon, largely because his reputation depends on it as much as his kingdom...

5 Text Lessons to Pair With Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Castle "Ghost" Cranshaw has a temper, a talent for running, and a father he doesn't talk about. Jason Reynolds spends the whole novel showing how those...

5 Text Lessons to Pair With The Odyssey

Odysseus spends ten years getting home from a war that also lasted ten years, which means the trip home took exactly as long as the reason he left. Along the...

5 Text Lessons to Pair With The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Ponyboy Curtis narrates his own coming-of-age story in real time, which means your students get his hindsight built right in. Handy, since the book covers a house fire,...

Make Your Novels Come Alive for Middle Schoolers with Book Pairings

Every fall, you pick the novels, order the class sets, and map out the reading schedule. You're ready to go. But the novel is only half the work....

Make Your Novels Come Alive for High Schoolers with Book Pairings

Every fall, you pick the novels, order the copies, and block out weeks of your syllabus for The Crucible or The Odyssey. You feel ready. Prepared, even. Then week three...

What to Look for in ELA Lessons: A Back-to-School Checklist for Secondary Classrooms

It’s another new school year, and your students are just getting acclimated. Somewhere in the stack of binders, printed packets, and Google Drive folders is the plan for how...

Engaging Short Stories about Identity for Middle and High School Students

Boost reading comprehension and engagement with seven relatable short stories for students in grades 6-12. With CommonLit’s digital library, you can introduce your students to hundreds of texts...

Informing Instruction with Formative Data & Assessments

It’s the day of a huge unit test or summative exam, and students have been preparing for weeks. They submit their answers and breathe a sigh of relief that...

How to Effectively Teach a CommonLit 360 Novel Unit

Build student reading comprehension with highly engaging novel study units, complete with lessons, chapter guides, and everything teachers need, all as part of CommonLit 360. There's something that...