Top Free Websites Every Special Education Teacher Should Know

Top Free Websites Every Special Education Teacher Should Know l Miss Rae's Room

Here’s a secret that we don’t tell our students.  Ready? Lean in close… All of the BEST teachers have tools in their toolboxes that make them the best!

So now that you know the secret, don’t tell the kiddos!  Let them continue to think you have eyes in the back of your head and all of those other superhuman powers you possess.  

But read on to gain a few more powers to support your DiVerSe learners!

Special Education Policies and Laws

Wrightslaw
A wealth of accurate, reliable information about special education law, education law, and advocacy for children with disabilities. 


Understood
This site is full of information on the different disabilities from 15 different nonprofit organizations.  It offers resources and research-based practical strategies!


Special Education Lesson Plan Ideas

Reading Rockets
This is one of my favorite sites!  Resources to help struggling readers build phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.  Plus +++ research on all things reading!


ReadWriteThink
Find resources, research AND lesson plans!  This site provides educators and students access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction.


Teaching Channel
I would be the president of the Teaching Channel fan club if one existed!  Launched in 2011, the Teaching Channel site is a multi-platform service delivering professional development videos for teachers, showcasing inspiring teachers, ideas, best practices and instructional resources to enhance our teaching knowledge.


Special Education Interventions and Assessments

Easy CBM
The Lite version is a free, simple way to progress monitor student achievement in reading and math.


PBIS World
PBISWorld.com is a comprehensive and easy to use tier 1 through tier 3 PBIS (positive interventions and supports) tool and resource that includes data tracking on almost every behavior that exists in the classroom.  


Intervention Central
Intervention Central is a leading resource for Response to Intervention (RTI) tools and resources, including academic and behavior interventions for classroom plus progress monitoring tools.


Special Education Student Learning Tools

Read Works
This webiste is an online resource of reading passages and lesson plans for students of all levels K-12.  Texts include pre-made worksheets, quizzes, and other printable materials to enhance the lesson. Students can highlight, annotate, and complete assignments online. ReadWorks is free for teachers to use.  Find differentiated texts for your special ed students, and some have a text to speech option!


Newsela
Newsela is a data base of current events stories tailor-made for classroom use. Indexed by broad theme (e.g. War and Peace, Arts, Science, Health, Law, Money), stories are both student-friendly and can be accessed in different formats by reading level. Use Newsela to differentiate nonfiction reading.


CommonLit
CommonLit is a free collection of fiction and nonfiction for 3rd-12th grade classrooms, organized by lexile levels.  Passages have a text to speech option PLUS comprehension checks and discussion questions! 


Khan Academy
A free website filled with courses, lessons, and practice on a variety of topics from the 1st grade level to the AP level.  The site offers short lessons in the form of videos and includes supplementary practice exercises and materials for educators.


Ted Ed andTed Talks
Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas with other educators.  The site is an excellent tool for visual learners Ted Talks also offers many videos on SEL topics for middle and high schoolers!


Kahoot
My students were obsessed with this site!  Teachers are able to make their own trivia games (AKA quizzes for students) to play in the classroom.  Your students will love to learn and play at the same time. And the best part is that you can download results into a spreadsheet at the end of the game for progress monitoring!


Math Playground
Find engaging math games and more on problem solving, logic, number sense, and the list goes on!


Starfall
This site specializes in reading, phonics & math, offering educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children k-3/beginning readers!  This is also a great tool for ESL students and families as the stories and be read aloud!


Special Education Teacher Blogs

Miss Rae’s Room
Okay, so this is a shameless plug, but…. check out my blog to improve your teaching knowledge and gain some resources and strategies for your DiVerSe learner population


Mrs. D’s Corner
Check out this blog for life skills ideas for your kiddos and a TON of resources!


Pathway 2 Success
A blog on strategies and ideas for social emotional learning.


Special Education Teacher Professional Development Courses

The Learning Tree Professional Development Network, LLC
An online professional development network created by teachers, for teachers.  TLTPDN offers provide high quality, responsive courses for educators!


Do you have a favorite website? Share below so we can empower our teaching community!

By Miss Rae