Elementary Classrooms
Everything an Elementary Teacher Needs to Get Started with CommonLit
Everything an elementary teacher needs to get started with CommonLit: Class creation, selecting a text, using our digital tools, and more!
CommonLit’s digital literacy program has high-quality and engaging stories, scaffolds for all learners, and easy-to-use data-tracking tools for teachers. Our team has created this resource bank filled with FAQ articles, blog posts, and videos to help you make the most of CommonLit.org with your elementary students.
Digital Learning with CommonLit Introductory Webinar
Our introductory webinar goes over everything you need to know to use CommonLit. It’s the best way to learn about CommonLit and how best to use it with elementary students — live with members of our team!
You will learn how to create an account, navigate our library of lessons, create a class, add students and co-teachers to your class, assign a lesson digitally, grade a lesson, and analyze data. You will also see CommonLit from a student’s perspective and learn how to use our various digital tools. If you can’t make a live session, here is a recording of a past webinar.
Getting Started With CommonLit
- Getting Started with CommonLit Guide for Teachers
- Video: Digital Instruction with CommonLit Webinar for Elementary Educators
- Video: Become A CommonLit Digital Pro (3 minutes)
- Video: Browsing the CommonLit Library
- Video: CommonLit’s Annotation Tool
CommonLit’s Library and Digital Tools
Here are some links to help you explore our amazing library of lessons for grades 3, 4, and 5.
- CommonLit library for grades 3–5
- Elementary Mini-Units to Support Reading Engagement and Knowledge Building
- Engaging Elementary Texts about Growing Up
- Stories for Elementary Students about Making New Friends
CommonLit’s Digital Tools
In addition to some of our favorite lessons for elementary students, you will find resources to help you utilize our digital tools with students. Our team has worked hard to build several features to help you differentiate instruction and meet the needs of your students.
- How to differentiate a CommonLit assignment to support all learners with text-to-speech, translation in 30+ languages, and more.
- 3 Ways to Effectively Use CommonLit’s Annotation Tool with Students
- How to customize a lesson on CommonLit
- How to manage and post an assignment with Google Classroom
- How to share an assignment to Canvas, Schoology, or another LMS
CommonLit Digital Class Set-Up
- How to set up classes on CommonLit (Manual with Class Code, Google Classroom, or Clever)
- How to add a co-teacher to your CommonLit class
- How to create a CommonLit assignment
Grading and Viewing Student Data on CommonLit
- How to grade students’ short-answer responses on CommonLit
- How to track student performance over time
- How to view individual student performance reports
- Video: Grading and Releasing Scores on CommonLit
- Video: Analyzing Data on CommonLit
Keep in Touch with CommonLit
To stay up to date on all of our new features, gain insight on all of our tools, and see videos about our digital program visit the following pages:
- CommonLit’s Newsletter: Subscribe to CommonLit’s newsletter by visiting this page and scrolling down to “GET UPDATES FROM COMMONLIT”.
- CommonLit’s Blog
- CommonLit’s FAQ site
- CommonLit’s Youtube Channel
- CommonLit’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Not seeing what you are looking for? Please visit our FAQ Page and see if we have a support article for you. If not, please feel free to email help@commonlit.org (teachers) or partnerships@commonlit.org (school leaders and district administrators)! We are here for you.