Community reviews for Newsela

I went to use it today and found it very unwieldy and hard to use as an ELA teacher. I want to be able to practice targeted skills and since they took the reading skill search away from free accounts, I won't be using it anymore which is a shame because I loved it.

The range of topics and information is exceptional. It can be a beneficial teaching tool if you tailor its use to your students. We found that many of our students cheated on the quiz by getting answers from others or opening a private account in addition to their school account to get answers. By creating our own assignment and expectations, we got a much better idea of what students were learning and what they were not.

I love using Newsela, although it hasn't always been my favorite. I didn't like the grading format of it, and some of the quiz questions are not always reliable. However, the more I use it, the more I like it. I think a lot of that has to do with making my expectations clear to students, as well as modeling and guiding them through the program. The more I see it from a student perspective, the more I can see where student confusion might come in (such as titles of articles changing across different lexile levels), and me being able to fix that on my end. Again, the more I use it, the more aware I become of this confusion, and the more I can fix it. I have seen a visible score difference in the way students now read and approach an article. Their short written responses have changed because I was able to educate them and train them on how to do that through this program. Can CommonLit do that, too? Yeah, to some extent. However, the texts aren't as timely, and they aren't at varied levels.

It is not honest to say the whole site is free when it is not! I realize they need to make money, I just thought that Newsela was really digging in to help fragile, inner city learners.

Great teaching tool if you (or your district) can afford the LARGE amount of money it costs for a paid subscription

As stated before, I absolutely loved the product before they made it such an unreasonable price. It was a fantastic was to differentiate, but now I cannot afford it.

This tool used to be great before they locked everything up. It is a little frustrating to try to find an article on the Maya or Aztecs, only to be faced with a snippet of article and a "pay to read more." I'm not talking a few articles and subjects locked up, EVERY ONE of their articles in their library is designated as "PRO." I guess its great if you can get your organization to pay for it. As for me, I'm out of luck.

I am a Newsela Certified Teacher Trainer, and I think that this is a great tool that offers many opportunities for professional development. It's a great instructional tool. There are some topics and resources I wish they had more articles on, but if you're looking for information pertaining to works in the canon, they're all readily accessible.

I wish there were more options on the free vs. having to pay for the pro. I'd also love if there were audio recordings of the reading so that students who are ELL or struggling readers could listen as they read.

I love this tool. My students often feel self-conscious because they are slower readers. Newsela helps them to build confidence because I can give them a reading that is on their reading level. I enjoy choosing articles that are current and applicable to their lives. I love watching them get involved and discuss what they have read!