Free Electronic Resources for Early Education

From emergency remote learning to digital resource literacy

This article first appeared in March 2020, when schools were moving online at extraordinary speed and teachers needed usable digital materials immediately. At that point, a long list of websites could be valuable in itself. The context is different now. Digital resources are part of ordinary teaching, blended learning, homework, intervention, project work and enrichment, so selection needs to be more deliberate.

The English-language version has therefore been rebuilt for an international English-speaking audience. Instead of carrying over a list designed mainly for Bulgarian teachers in 2020, this update prioritises resources that currently work well in English and are relevant to primary or elementary education in the UK, US and wider international settings. Where a platform is closely tied to a national curriculum, that limitation is stated clearly.

Recommended free digital resources for primary and elementary teachers

Khan Academy and Khan Academy Kids: a strong starting point for core practice

Khan Academy continues to describe its core learning platform as free for independent learners, teachers and parents. Its current teacher tools bring together content, practice and progress information across subjects such as mathematics, reading, writing and science. For younger learners, Khan Academy Kids offers a separate early-learning experience.

Khan Academy Kids is particularly relevant to early childhood and lower-primary settings. The app is free for families and individual classroom teachers and includes thousands of activities, books and videos for early maths, literacy and social-emotional learning. Schools and districts can purchase additional implementation and reporting services, so teachers should distinguish the free classroom app from institutional packages.

Oak National Academy: especially useful for UK primary teaching

Oak National Academy is one of the strongest current options for teachers working with the curriculum in England. It provides free curriculum plans and teaching resources across primary and secondary subjects, including English, computing, art and design, cooking and nutrition, and many other areas. Resources include lesson sequences, slide decks, worksheets and quizzes.

For teachers outside England, Oak can still be useful as a high-quality planning reference, but the curriculum sequence should not be copied mechanically. Concepts, terminology and expectations need to be mapped to the local curriculum before materials are assigned to pupils.

ReadWorks: free reading comprehension resources

ReadWorks is a particularly strong resource for English-language literacy. The nonprofit provides its educator platform free of charge and offers thousands of texts and instructional resources designed to build background knowledge, vocabulary and reading comprehension. It also includes decodable texts for younger readers and tools for differentiation.

The platform is closely connected with US curriculum and standards contexts, but many texts can be useful in international schools, bilingual settings and English-language classrooms. Teachers should still review cultural context, vocabulary and reading level before assigning a passage.

British Council LearnEnglish Kids: a global English-language resource

British Council LearnEnglish Kids remains one of the most accessible resources for children learning English. The site offers free games, songs, stories, videos, reading and writing practice, grammar and vocabulary activities, printable flashcards and worksheets. It is designed specifically for children and is supported by resources for parents.

In a primary classroom, these materials work well as short listening starters, reading practice, vocabulary stations, speaking prompts, homework tasks or resources for multilingual pupils who need additional English support.

LearningApps: fast interactive practice without building a full platform

LearningApps remains useful because teachers can create small interactive learning objects without programming. Matching, sorting, sequencing, quizzes, cloze activities, crosswords and multimedia tasks can be built quickly and shared with pupils. The organisation states that the platform and content created with its authoring tools are free for educational use.

The important limitation is the public library: many activities are created by users, and platform operators cannot pre-validate every item. A teacher should therefore test the activity, check answers, language, copyright and difficulty before using it with a class.

Code.org and Scratch: move from consuming resources to creating with technology

Digital learning should not consist only of watching videos and answering questions. Code.org and Scratch allow pupils to create. Code.org’s Computer Science Fundamentals is designed for elementary learners and combines online tasks with unplugged activities in computational thinking, programming, problem solving and digital citizenship. The curriculum and platform are available at no cost.

Scratch is a complementary creative environment for older primary pupils who are ready to design interactive stories, games and animations. It works particularly well when coding is linked to another subject: a mathematical game, an animated story, a historical scene or a science explanation. Where pupils publish or interact with an online community, the teacher should review account, privacy and sharing arrangements.

PhET, Smithsonian Learning Lab and CK-12: digital resources for inquiry and STEM

PhET Interactive Simulations from the University of Colorado Boulder provides free, research-based simulations for mathematics and science. In primary classrooms, the key is careful selection: not every simulation is intended for younger pupils, but an age-appropriate one can make an abstract relationship visible and manipulable.

Smithsonian Learning Lab gives teachers access to millions of digital museum objects, images, recordings, texts and videos across history, art, culture and science. Teachers can build or adapt collections and use them for observation, inquiry, comparison and source-based learning. CK-12 is another useful free resource bank, especially for STEM concepts, interactive lessons and adaptive practice, although much of its organisation reflects US curriculum structures.

How to use digital resources without turning a lesson into a sequence of links

A digital resource is most useful when it has one clear function in the lesson. A short interactive activity can activate prior knowledge. A reading passage can build vocabulary. A simulation can reveal a relationship. A coding project can turn understanding into a product. A video or story can create a shared context for discussion.

The sequence should therefore be learning objective → learning activity → resource, not platform → activity → hoped-for learning. This distinction matters especially in primary education, where a visually exciting interface can easily attract more attention than the concept being taught.