TECHNOLOGY TIPS – Newsela Announces New Library Feature

According to their website, Newsela “is an education technology startup dedicated to transforming the way learners access the world through words.” The company was launched in June 2013 looking to assist educators with assessing a child’s reading strengths and weaknesses. There are 7.7 million students currently signed up as users and 800,000 teachers.

CEO and co-founder Matthew Gross said, “Teachers wanted more than just news articles to turn their students into great readers and critical thinkers.” It was this new direction that led to the Library in Newsela. The Library includes the categories Arts & Culture, Science & Math, Religion & Philosophy, Government & Economics, Geography, World History and US History.

New within the Library are Primary Sources, Biographies, Famous Speeches and Time Machine. These are the categories where you could find something like the Constitution of the United States. The difference is that the originals you would find are adapted to the reading level of the user. In addition the site is offered in Spanish for those students who are English Language Learners.

In another statement, Gross said, “We are aiming to improve reading comprehension, knowledge acquisition and reading motivation among students of different abilities.”

CATHY MALLERS & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO