French reading is an essential means to expand your students’ vocabulary, gain a better understanding of French culture, and immerse them in the language. It is a cornerstone for language acquisition and equips learners with a lifelong tool for personal enrichment and a deeper understanding of the world. So … we understand the importance of reading, but there is still a common barrier that many French teachers face when trying to improve their students’ French reading skills.
The Problem
Have you ever been up late at night, trying to find authentic reading materials that pertain to your students’ proficiency level? Have you found yourself scrolling and scrolling, wasting many hours of your precious free time? Yes… I’m guilty of this too. Many of us have a hard time finding authentic reading materials because we may have:
A wide range of language proficiency levels in our class
A hard time finding age-appropriate materials that will interest our students
Encountered access problems that only allow us to download articles if we pay a subscription to use their website
The Solution
In this article, I will introduce you to six essential French websites that you can use with your learners to help enhance your students’ French reading skills. The best part…. No subscription is needed for any of these technological treasures because they are FREE to the public!
One of my favorite websites to use with my students is TV5Monde. This website offers a wide range of content, including news articles, reports, cultural features, and more. The content is authentic and similar to what native speakers read so it exposes learners to real-world language, idiomatic expressions, and cultural nuances, making their French reading experience more practical and applicable.
TV5Monde also caters to learners at different competency levels.. Articles are often labeled with the proficiency level (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2), which allows readers to choose content that matches their current skills. There are also interactive comprehension exercises that learners can complete after reading the text to help reinforce what they’ve read. This makes the experience more engaging, practical, and educational.
Many of the articles on the website also come with audio recordings, allowing learners to listen to the text being read aloud in French. This helps them enhance their pronunciation, listening skills, and overall language comprehension. What a win-win situation!
The website is frequently updated with new content, ensuring that learners have access to fresh and relevant reading materials. Therefore, make sure to bookmark this website and check back every month to discover the latest releases!
This website caters especially to teenagers and young adults. It offers a variety of content designed to appeal to this age group, making it an excellent resource for enhancing reading comprehension in the intermediate and senior French classroom.
The website covers a wide range of subjects, including current events, education, relationships, culture, and issues that affect young people. This diversity exposes readers to different vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and writing styles, helping them become well-rounded readers.
There are also many interactive features such as quizzes, polls, and user comments. These elements encourage readers to engage actively with the content that they are reading, which can enhance French reading comprehension and retention.
Le français facile avec RFI offers international news summaries in both audio and text format for French learners at different proficiency levels. From beginner to advanced content, educators can pick the topic that relates to their students’ proficiency level.
Each transcription is accompanied by an audio recording, enabling learners to listen to the text being read aloud in French. This integration of listening and reading is vital for improving overall language comprehension, as it reinforces both French reading and listening skills.
When students have finished their French reading, RFI Savoirs has a variety of comprehension exercises, quizzes, and interactive activities related to the specific article. These exercises assess understanding and serve to reinforce the material. I have personally found these exercises super beneficial for students preparing for the DELF exam.
This French educational website is designed for children and explores a variety of engaging topics for young readers. Each day, a new article is posted on the site that features a current event or news topic, presented in a child-friendly and age-appropriate manner. The goal of 1 Jour 1 actu is to inform and educate young readers about important events happening around the world and in France while using language and formats that are easy for kids to understand.
The website offers teachers a convenient and reliable way to integrate current events and news literacy into their curriculum. Some of my favorite topics that we’ve read in class include:
Photo du jour : Des robes renversantes à Paris
Liberté de la presse dans le monde : où en est-on ?
Les vacances d’été durent-elles trop longtemps ? À toi de nous le dire ! (Great for a classroom debate right before summer break!)
Maria-Line, 8 ans, te raconte ses liens avec l’Algérie
Using these articles in class will enhance your students’ media literacy and critical thinking skills and encourage thought-provoking class discussions that they will remember!
Storyweaver is a valuable website for improving beginner and intermediate students’ French reading proficiency, especially if they enjoy stories and children’s literature. The site provides a vast collection of multilingual children’s stories that are freely available for reading. Thankfully, French is one of the languages the viewer can pick from! There is also the ability to sort content based on language proficiency level :
Level 1 : includes familiar words, lots of repetition and a text that has less than 50 words
Level 2 : includes simple concepts and a text around 600 words
Level 3 : a more complicated text around 1500 words
Level 4: a more advanced text with more than 1500 words
Storyweaver also allows students to filter stories based on their interests (ex. Aventure & mystère, biographies, classiques, fantaisie, histoire, poèmes, etc.). After they’ve selected the correct category and passage, they can actively engage with the text.
This website is perfect for beginner and intermediate French learners. The stories are simple and include a variety of visuals to help students comprehend the material that they are consuming.
Lastly, Lawless French is one of my favorite resources to use in my intermediate and senior French classes! The website offers a variety of authentic French texts (articles, short stories, news, etc.), topics (literature, history, culture, etc.), and reading comprehension exercises for various French proficiency levels ranging from beginner to advanced. Learners can pick French reading material that aligns with their current skill level (A1, A2, B1, B2 or C1) and eventually build their confidence to tackle more challenging material. There is also grammar and vocabulary support for each article and exercises so if students encounter unfamiliar words, they can use the glossary to look up their meanings. This tool is essential for expanding vocabulary and improving reading comprehension.
Lawless French also provides a comprehension exercise for students to complete after reading an article. This section highlights important vocabulary in the text, certain grammatical concepts, useful expressions, and a reading comprehension quiz to check for student understanding. Incorporating Lawless French into your classroom is an excellent way to enhance French reading comprehension skills and is applicable to all learners.
Conclusion on Website to Enhance French Reading
Building your repertoire of technological resources to enhance your students’ French reading skills will be a continual endeavor. Technology is constantly evolving and new tools and resources are constantly being developed. Staying up to date ensures that you can take advantage of the latest and most effective educational technologies to benefit your learners. Luckily, you can add these six resources to your list and limit your searching time elsewhere.
Have some other favorite websites to improve French reading skills? Let me know in the comments!
P.S. Be sure to check out my blog post: 3 Free Reading Comprehension Texts to Teach la francophonie to get access to some traditional materials to enhance French reading skills with your students!