Finding informational text for the varied levels of student reading abilities in any classroom can be a challenge—until now… Meet Newsela, a web tool that offers students in Grades 3-12 access to non-fiction articles from reputable news sources rewritten at five different Lexile levels.

Yep, you read that last line correctly! Newsela not only provides students with real-world news related to high interest topics such as War & Peace, Science, Kids, Money, Law, Health and the Arts, but the site also makes it possible for an entire class to read the same content yet at a level that’s just right for each student. Seriously.

Oh, and did I mention that the articles and corresponding interactive quizzes are aligned to the Common Core State Standards? It’s true!  After creating a free educational account, students can join your class, read informational text and participate in conversations about the most urgent topics of our time, all while becoming stronger readers.

As an added bonus, the teacher management tool offers educators the ability to examine progress tracked by article, student or class. Average scores for all quizzes can be seen as well as average scores by standard.  In addition, a download link is provided so that all data can be viewed as an Excel spreadsheet.

But what if I don’t have access to computers or mobile devices? No problem! Newsela allows users to print articles and quizzes as needed.

So, what are you waiting for? Challenge your students to read closely, think critically and be worldly—all with Newsela!

Classroom Connection:

Whether it be via an interactive read aloud, shared reading, guided reading or a mini-lesson, use Newsela to engage students in high interest topics and to differentiate the use of informational texts in the learning environment.