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All resourcesEfficacy Study & Validity Reports

Newsela Writing boosts student writing and earns teacher support: A summary of pilot research findings

March 1, 2025

Efficacy study preview

Review early evidence on Newsela Writing, student outcomes, and teacher experience

This summary shares pilot findings from a randomized controlled study of Ecree, an earlier version of Newsela Writing, in grades 8–11 classrooms.

Key Findings

What the pilot study found

Review headline student and teacher findings from the pilot while keeping the full research details in the downloadable summary.

+10 percentile points

Overall writing performance

Students using Newsela Writing scored higher on an end-of-year writing task; this difference didn’t meet the study’s conventional significance threshold.

+14 percentile points

Essay organization

Students using Newsela Writing showed a 14 percentile-point difference in how clearly and effectively they organized essays.

+20 percentile points

Supporting evidence

Among students with less advanced writing skills, the study found a significant 20 percentile-point difference for evidence and elaboration.

59% of teachers

Teacher usefulness

More than half of surveyed teachers using Newsela Writing agreed or strongly agreed it was useful for helping students improve their writing.

All ResourcesEfficacy Study & Validity Reports

Newsela Writing boosts student writing and earns teacher support: A summary of pilot research findings

Student writing improvement

Efficacy study preview

Review early evidence on Newsela Writing, student outcomes, and teacher experience

This summary shares pilot findings from a randomized controlled study of Ecree, an earlier version of Newsela Writing, in grades 8–11 classrooms.

Key Findings

What the pilot study found

Review headline student and teacher findings from the pilot while keeping the full research details in the downloadable summary.

+10 percentile points

Overall writing performance

Students using Newsela Writing scored higher on an end-of-year writing task; this difference didn’t meet the study’s conventional significance threshold.

+14 percentile points

Essay organization

Students using Newsela Writing showed a 14 percentile-point difference in how clearly and effectively they organized essays.

+20 percentile points

Supporting evidence

Among students with less advanced writing skills, the study found a significant 20 percentile-point difference for evidence and elaboration.

59% of teachers

Teacher usefulness

More than half of surveyed teachers using Newsela Writing agreed or strongly agreed it was useful for helping students improve their writing.

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