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Newsela: Leader Guide

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cassandra andrews
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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform which publishes 8-10 high-interest nonfiction articles daily at five reading levels of complexity (Lexile Levels) for grades 2-12 through their proprietary, rapid text-leveling process. 

In this article

How to access Newsela

Leaders can access Newsela from Clever anytime by logging into their Clever account and clicking on the icon from their portal. 

NOTE: This is different from how teachers login.

1. Go to Clever.

2. Click Staff & Leader Login

 

3. Enter your username and password.

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4. Click on the Newsela icon in your Clever portal

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If this is your first time logging into Newsela:

  1.  Click Next on the Welcome Page
  2.  Click on the class to be synced to your account, select your subject (or other if your subject is not  seen), click on  Sync Selected Classes.

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Newsela Usage

IDEA ELA K-8 teachers may use Newsela to:

  • Offer more “at bats” (practice) with on-grade-level Wit & Wisdom and Amplify ELA lessons
  • Extend learning for students who need more background building knowledge around studied topics

Suggested Times for Use: 

  • On Flex Days 
  • STAAR/LEAP/FSA Success Units 
  • During Intervention 

                      
  • During Tutorials 

 

 

Curriculum Manager Usage:

Curriculum Managers will use specific texts to create a bank of state assessment aligned lessons and formative assessments for STAAR/LEAP/FSA Success Units. These resources will provide guidance such as articulation for which texts to use, questioning and literacy strategy suggestions, and daily exit tickets based on genres. Campuses will be able to pull from these banks in order to prepare students for the state assessments based on campus/classroom data.

 

How/When should students be assigned to work in Newsela

Newsela is an instructional tool that IDEA has adopted to help students fill in gaps of background cross- Newsela should be used to supplement and accelerate the IDEA ELA curriculum and should NOT be used to replace daily lessons. Newsela provides targeted and specific additional texts based on each module/unit. Teachers can access these texts and activities in the “Curriculum Complements” section of Newsela. Texas and Louisiana teachers would use Great Minds, Wit & Wisdom resources and Florida teachers would use Amplify resources. For example, if students are in Texas, Grade 3, Module 1 of Wit & Wisdom, they would search the platform in the following manner:

1) Log in

2) Find “Curriculum Complements”

3) Choose “Great Minds; Wit & Wisdom

4) Find Grade 3, Module 1

5) Select a text from the choices provided

6) Select/design activities for the text

7) Assign specific students or entire class to the work

8) Provide timeframe and due date for work

9) Share data with manager in order to decide instructional next steps.

 

Newslea will also be tool for curriculum managers to create targeted lessons and formative assessments for STAAR/LEAP/FSA Success Units that campuses may use, based on campus/classroom data, that better prepares students for the state assessments. The details of implementation may look different from campus to campus and will be accessed through Clever for both students and teachers. 

 

Newsela Content 

Newsela ELA is a comprehensive, engaging, and culturally responsive resource for Language Arts curriculum and instruction. Newsela ELA provides teachers with a library of authentic, timely, and trustworthy cross-curricular content, along with assessment & reading skills tracking and activities to reinforce reading engagement in the classroom. With more added every day, Newsela ELA contains over 10,000 texts and counting. Newsela ELA is updated daily with 3-5 leveled news articles (of which 1 is also published in Spanish) along with one non leveled fiction text. 

 

Newsela ELA Usage Plan 

Teachers 

Use only curriculum module/unit “Curriculum Complements” texts by grade level and other Newsela texts related to the module/unit studies. Teachers and managers will determine when and how this work is appropriate for each student. 

 

Teachers can assign students texts and activities that allow for acceleration and continued study in the topic. There are built in literacy activities as well as the option for teachers to add their own activities to the texts. 

 

Suggested Set-up and How-To Guide from Newslea:  

2020 Implementation Guide (newsela.com) 

 

Students 

Use and work in teacher-assigned texts related to their module/unit studies during tutorials, intervention, and/or on Flex Days in the classroom. 

 

Curriculum Managers 

Use any topic (with the exception of “Curriculum Complements” and module/unit related texts) to create STAAR/LEAP/FSA Success Units. These texts will be able to be used as lessons and formative assessments in order to prepare students for state assessments. 

 

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