Your First Classroom: Twelve Free Literacy Resources for Early Career Teachers
(Guest Blog)
29th May 2025
Supporting Early Career Teachers — whether you're stepping into the classroom yourself or guiding those who are: in this guest blog, Sian Hardy, founder of Literacy Hive, shares twelve tried-and-tested free resources to help new teachers feel confident, plan engaging lessons and support every pupil.
Sian Hardy
Founder
Literacy Hive
Congratulations to all those preparing to begin their journey as Early Career Teachers! As an ECT, it’s easy to focus on all the things you don’t yet know, but don’t let that overshadow the many strengths that you bring to the classroom. Your pupils will benefit from your fresh perspectives and up-to-date pedagogical knowledge, your energy and enthusiasm, and your willingness to try something new. Experience will come with time, but there is also a wealth of support available from the wider world of literacy to help you along the way. Here are twelve FREE resources to help you build confidence, plan engaging lessons and meet your students’ diverse learning needs.
Reading for Pleasure
With the number of children and young people who enjoy reading in their free time at an all-time low, helping children develop the will to read alongside their reading skill has never been more important. Here are four resources to help you promote Reading for Pleasure in your classroom.
1. Books for Keeps:
One of the key pillars of RfP pedagogy is teachers’ knowledge of children’s books but keeping up to date with the thousands of titles published every year can seem like an impossible task. That’s where Books for Keeps can help. This online magazine comes out every two months and, as well as author interviews and articles about the children’s book world, every edition includes reviews of books for all ages by experienced teachers and librarians. Invest a couple of hours every other month and you will soon develop a feel for the books and authors that will be of interest to your young readers.
2. OU/UKLA Teachers’ Reading Groups
Join your local Teachers’ Reading Group to tap into a supportive community dedicated to helping practitioners develop their understanding of RfP pedagogy and best-practice. Groups meet five times a year and there are over 100 groups across the country.
3. Authors Live
Hearing an author talk about their work can be an inspiring and motivating experience. If the school budget doesn’t run to an author visit, Authors Live runs a programme of free live webcasts featuring some of the top children’s authors and illustrators. You can also access past events in their Authors Live On Demand archive.
4. Bookplates UK
If we want children to choose to read in their own time, then we need to make books feel special, which is why I have included Bookplates UK on this list. There are lots of ways that you could use this library of free downloadable bookplates to engage your readers, while the ‘donated by’ bookplates are a great way to recognise (and encourage!) book donations to the library when school budgets are tight.
5. Reading and Writing Scales
These two progression tools created by CLPE and partner organisations will help you identify what stage of the reading or writing journey a pupil is currently at, and provide practical strategies to help you support each child and enable them to move forward.
6. Englicious
If your understanding of some of the finer points of English grammar is a little hazy, the Englicious website is a great resource. It hosts a library of English language teaching resources for KS1 – KS5, an overview of grammar terms, and CPD materials to help you brush up on your own subject knowledge.
7. Children’s Poetry Archive
Bring poems to life with this bank of recordings of children’s poems being read aloud. There are over 50 poets featured, with filters to help you search for a poem by theme or age group. There is also a bank of ideas and activities to help you plan your poetry lessons.
8. Poetry Prompts
Raise the profile of poetry in your primary classroom with these short videos and accompanying teaching notes created by former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho and CLPE. Designed to demystify poetry and empower young people to write and perform their own poems, each video explores a different subject or poetic technique and brings it to life in an engaging way.
9. NewsWise
Download free lesson plans, a teacher guide and other supporting resources to help you deliver a cross-curricular project designed to help pupils aged 7-11 develop the skills they need to access, understand and participate in the news.
10. Topical Talk
For older children aged 10+, Topical Talk provides free weekly teaching resources to help students develop critical thinking and communication skills through discussions about the top news stories.
Supporting EAL Students
Multilingual classrooms are now the norm in the UK, with over one in five children in schools speaking English as an Additional Language (EAL). Understanding what level of English proficiency your EAL students are working at is key to providing them with the appropriate support.
11. EAL Assessment Framework
This award-winning assessment tool from The Bell Foundation allows teachers to assess learners’ English language proficiency, target support and monitor progress through the year. It includes links to practical classroom strategies to support learners at each of the five levels of proficiency as well as free, on-demand training to help you use the tools with confidence.
Planning
Schools are tight-knit communities – it is one of their great strengths – but don’t forget to look beyond the school gates to take advantage of everything on offer as you plan your literacy curriculum.
12. The Literacy Year
Packed with celebration days, award shadowing schemes, writing competitions and literacy conferences, this online calendar gives you a month-by-month guide to the opportunities available to help you engage your young readers and writers. Each entry comes with links to supporting resources – such as booklists and free author events – all of which are regularly updated so that you can find everything you need in one place.
Remember, every great teacher started somewhere. The early days of your new teaching career can feel overwhelming but, with time, practice and support, your confidence will soon grow. The free literacy tools shared here are just a small sample of the resources available to help you deliver an engaging literacy curriculum for all your pupils. To find more inspiration and support, you can visit Literacy Hive – a signposting website that makes accessing resources from a wide range of providers simple and straight forward.
Sian Hardy has over 35 years’ experience of working in the children’s book world, in a variety of roles. That breadth of experience combined with a desire to help schools create the readers of tomorrow led her to set up Literacy Hive, a literacy resource signposting platform that connects educators to the wider world of books and reading and helps them find resources to support all aspects of the literacy curriculum quickly and easily.
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