Newsela

Product Description:

Newsela is a website which houses numerous different non-fiction articles for different grade levels. Teachers can either assign articles, quizzes, or writing based on these articles.

Glitchy Review:

Newsela is a decent program. I use the free version with my class and can still do many different things. While with all programs the paid version does give you more information there is still much to do with the free version. When you sign up you get a month of the paid program to check it out. The only flaw with this would be if you like the program you HAVE to be a school or district to get the paid program. There is not option on the site to order for the individual teacher. I am currently looking to find out if you can get Newsela for individual teachers. I will update when an answer is received.

For this review it will be a compare and contrast the free version to the paid.

First, with the free version you have access to all the articles available on Newsela as well as the quizzes and writing assignments. The only difference between the paid and free version is you can assign these to the students online while the free version you do not have that option. For me I just read the questions on type them up for my students. (Paper and pencil is still good!) The only thing you can do with the questions on the paid version and not on the free is customize the prompts.

Second, with the free and paid version you have the ability to change the Lexile level of the article to allow all students to read the same article at their level! (Hello access to the information!) Now students and teachers do not have to worry about students not being able to follow along or not have access to the information! (This is my FAVORITE feature! Yes, even more than the quizzes.)

Third, with the paid version you have access to all articles in SPANISH. Yes, you read that correctly, SPANISH. All quizzes, writing, and articles will be in Spanish as well. No other languages are available, but I am sure they are in the works.

Fourth, is a couple of things. With the paid version you will also have access to a report for each student with a breakdown of the concepts. This breakdown also allows you to see the class average, annotations made by students, organize the questions by CC Strand, view student progress, and compare your students to other students on Newsela. This works great for any teacher’s, schools, or districts looking for RTI information or small group information.

Glitchy Rating: I give this website a 4 simply because you have so much you can do as teacher on the free version. I really wish they would have a way for us to buy the program as the individual teacher and more language options available.

User Rating: This website is a level 1. You can go in there and begin working right away. It will take some “playing around” to figure out where everything is, but still highly user friendly for any of the user.

Here is the website for you: https://newsela.com/