The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show reading scores are down nationally in both 4th and 8th grades and the gap between the highest and lowest performers is the widest it’s ever been. At Newsela, we believe that literacy growth starts with content-rich instruction.
Newsela products are rooted in research and learning science, and proven to drive learning outcomes by a growing number of efficacy studies conducted by Newsela and third-party evaluators.
Students who used Newsela ELA and Newsela Social Studies saw gains of approximately 5 percentiles relative to their peers. That’s the equivalent of 3 additional months of literacy growth in ELA and 10 additional months of social studies instruction.
Newsela studies indicate that students benefit significantly from using Newsela’s products weekly. Students who read and take quizzes 2x per week see 4 additional months of literacy skill growth by the end of the school year.
Newsela studies show positive results across ability levels. With Newsela products, teachers can meet at-risk learners where they are to help build the confidence, motivation, and reading skills they need to close the gap.
Newsela’s standards-aligned quizzes, along with other flexible student-facing activities, allow educators to formatively assess students using engaging, relevant content. The pre-built quizzes are low-stakes, aligned to standards, and best of all, can predict how students will perform on standardized assessments without sacrificing valuable instructional time.
Consistency is key to driving literacy growth across your district. Help students build the literacy skills necessary for success in and outside of the classroom with a simple four-step system that lets teachers easily integrate Newsela into classroom instruction.
Search Newsela’s library of over 15,000 texts and multimedia for content that aligns with your district’s instructional goals. Easily find the perfect resource for your standard, reading skill, theme, topic, unit, and grade level. Differentiate texts at scale with different reading levels, Spanish translations, and accessibility features to meet the needs of every student.
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Spend time getting students ready for what they will read or view. Consider what background knowledge or motivation they need ot successfully engage in and understand the lesson. Then, leverage tools and activities on any Newsela text for a pre-reading activity.
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Create an assignment and have students highlight and annotate text to engage in comprehension strategies. Use checks for understanding to ensure students understand what they’ve ready before moving forward. Alternatively, read together as a group and model comprehension strategies in presentation mode.
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Give students the opportunity to create meaning from what they’ve just read. Have students take the quiz to assess standards-based literacy skills and get instant feedback to inform future instruction.
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Through collective dedication from all departments, Freehold Township created a groundswell response to improve literacy and deepen learning for their students. Educators leveraged resources tailored to their lessons to encourage regular literacy skills practice and reading comprehension. The district’s consistent, cross-curricular efforts drove same-year reading growth for students in all grade levels.
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– Rebecca Montgomery, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction at Freehold Township School District