Newsela

Jerica Dungca

ED638-01

January 10, 2018

Fall Intercession 2017

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Weekly Project: Effective Literacy Website #5

            Newsela (https://newsela.com) is an online reading program and community that provides educators, parents, and students access to a variety of non-fiction news articles. These articles are based on an array of topics that span across all subject areas. Newsela is a great resource and tool for educators and students to access current events and learn about news from all around the world.

            To start, Newsela’s goal is to improve reading comprehension in students grades 2^nd to 12^th. It offers an extensive library of current event articles aimed to meet different reading abilities and interests. Newsela offers users a free version, in which they can access the online library of news articles. It also offers Newsela PRO, which is paid subscription for administrators and educators to access additional Newsela tools and features.         

   

            Educators will appreciate Newsela’s free version. With this version, teachers can access various current event articles based on their students’ reading levels. Searching for these articles is quick and simple. Teachers can click on different topics to find an article or narrow the search by grade level, topic, and skill. Furthermore, teachers will enjoy Newsela because the articles and activities are aligned to Common Core Reading Standards. This makes it convenient for educators to provide students with reading material that supports learning objectives.  

            Another key feature that Newsela offers educators is the Newsela Binder. With this feature, teachers can add articles or text sets to their binder. Then, they could assign the articles to students to read and answer online. Other features Newsela provides educators are student quizzes, annotation tool to use with articles, writing prompts, and student-progress monitoring.

            Lastly, for students, Newsela articles will capture their interests and motivate them to read. With a student account, they can access Newsela from any computer at home or school. Once logged on, students can read the articles assigned to them, expand their vocabulary with the Power Words tool, take quizzes, and respond to writing prompts. If students wish to explore other current event articles, they can access them on Newsela’s online library.

            In all, Newsela is an awesome resource and tool to implement in the classroom. It exposes students to daily current events with content that piques their interests. With Newsela, educators have access to quality reading material that will help enhance their students’ reading comprehension.