Encourage Students to Read from These Ebook Library Resources

Students can benefit greatly from more access to books, whether as teaching materials or for fun. Students should have more opportunities to read enjoyable and challenging books. Ebooks have many advantages over print books since they don’t need to be carried, they can be accessed instantly, has additional features for highlighting and note-taking for classes. Many resources provide access to a large selection of ebooks for schools. Teachers and students should take advantage of lending libraries and other sources of ebooks.

Sora

Overdrive is one of the largest library ebook/audiobook lending services, and its Sora app is designed for students in particular. K-12 students whose schools or districts subscribe to Sora can access a catalog from the Sora Starter Collection plus additional featured books and the ability to purchase access to custom titles. The company reported to Publishers Weekly that in schools that used Sora, students nearly doubled the amount of time they spent reading, and their reading increased by 240% of Sora was connected to their local public library’s ebook offerings.

Epic

Epic is an e-reading platform that gives access to thousands of titles for free while in school, from major publishers to Epic originals. Over 1 million educators use Epic. What’s great about it are features like Epic Free, which lets schools give students access out of school for two hours a week to encourage them to read at home. Teachers can send invitations to students and families. Parents can choose to sign up for Epic Unlimited to pay for additional access to the books their kids love.

Tumblebooks

Tumblebooks is a service for public libraries and schools that holds many popular children’s books. Public libraries that partner with local schools can treat them as another branch to give access to students remotely. The TeenBookCloud service is for teenage readers, including ebooks, audiobooks, and enhanced ebooks, including unlimited remote access. It makes a good option for both class novel reading and free reading. You can also access the ‘My Assignments’ feature to give quizzes and assignments based on the reading material within the Tumblebooks platform.

Storia

From the popular children-focused publisher Scholastic, Storia School Edition offers school-wide simultaneous access to a library of ebooks. Teachers can customize the selection through a good selection search filters and find the correct titles for their class. School-wide collections for PreK-Grade 6, Grade 6-Grade 8, and Spanish PreK-3 are available. Each title, comes with learning tools to test and build reading comprehension and vocabulary skills, making it perfect for early reading education.

Project Gutenberg

Public domain books are 100% free, and over 60,000 have been digitized as ePub and Kindle ebooks for Project Gutenberg’s collection. Thousands of classic works of literature taught in school curriculums are available to download, making it an ideal source of books for teaching whole classes without having to worry about lending limits from other services.

Bibliotheca

Library management company Bibliotheca’s cloudLibrary service is used by public libraries to offer ebooks to patrons. The app lets people check out books at the library using their mobile device as well as borrow digital books from the cloudLibrary collection. Libraries only have to pay for digital titles when patrons download them, letting them offer a larger catalog affordably. Its Cirrus reader app supports enhanced children’s ebook features for a more engaging experience for young readers.

Read More: Digital Tools to Improve Student Access to Books and the Reading Experience

Libby

Overdrive’s app for public libraries can offer a wide-ranging and customizable selection of ebooks that kids can access using their public library card. Teachers should encourage students to make full use of their library access for a free reading from any device. You can read online, offline, or send to your Kindle device.

Hoopla

The Hoopla app offers ebooks, audiobooks, music, graphic novels, and more for patrons of public libraries, and is ideal for getting students more involved in reading. Unlike Libby, it supports simultaneous downloads from multiple readers, so you don’t need to wait for another library patron to finish before you can get access. This makes it better for giving young readers access to recommended books without them having to read one at a time.