🆕 Enhancement releases

We've been busy! Here's a sneak peek at our April 2025 new features and improvements:

Improved Reporting

Both the Classroom Data and Student Data pages have received a design refresh to give our teachers a better way of obtaining information and insights into the reading progress of both their class and individual students.

Additionally, admins now have an access to an improved reporting experience via their admin console:

1. Teacher drill-down pages with detailed usage insights

2. School drill-down pages with detailed usage insights

3. Filter improvements

   • Custom date ranges in Usage report and Classroom Data

   • Multi-select filters for school & grade level in Usage Report

4. Four new CSV exports across the Classroom Data and Usage Report pages

   • Reading Skills Classroom Data

   • Reading Activity Classroom Data

   • Weekly Quizzes Submitted dosage report

   • Weekly Articles Viewed dosage report

5. Newsela Writing CSV: Make existing writing data available to district admins. Improved alignment with state rubric categories; now available for School admins

Luna-Powered Lesson Planner

We added an AI-powered lesson planner to the Newsela platform that lets teachers generate a lesson plan based on a piece of Newsela content, one or more standards, and a learning objective. Read all about it here!

Enhanced Search Functionality

We have made some significant improvements to our Newsela search experience.

• Improved search results and resource indexing

• Streamlined design for search results

• Added ability to filter for Decodables

• Maturity level now provides a slider selection input

• Improved search results with the standards filter:

  • ELA quiz question standards are now included in standards results for articles

  • Lesson spark standards are now included in standards results for text sets

Content promotion enhancements.

• Promoted at your district content is now available on the home page for associated teachers.

• We have more clearly positioned our Content settings functionality by including both Content promotion and Content restriction within Content settings.

• Previously Content promotion was only available to our district customers and district administrators could promote content at the district level. We now support the ability for school administrators to also promote content for their school. This content will be available under My content > Promoted at your school.

AI-Powered Exportable Graphic Organizers

This feature uses AI to generate graphic organizers with key information extracted from a Newsela article. The templates are editable, so teachers have the opportunity to tailor the complexity of information shown to individual or group needs. Teachers have the option to download as a PDF and share digitally with students, or print for offline use.
We are offering six initial types of graphic organizers to support teachers in reinforcing knowledge:

• Main Idea and Details Chart

• KWL Chart (Know, Want to know, Learned)

• Compare and Contrast Diagram

• Anticipation Guide (Agree/Disagree)

• Context Clues Detective

• Frayer Model (Vocabulary Four-Square)

Click here to learn more!

Text Translator

A new AI-Powered Text Translator has been added to Newsela. This tool will allow teachers and students to translate the vast majority of Newsela articles into 42 different languages on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Read more about it here!

State Specific Standards Alignment Now Visible on Lesson Sparks

Teachers and Administrators can now view tagged state specific standards on lesson sparks. Over 32,000 state specific standards across 50 states and DC tagged on over 13,000 lesson sparks will now be visible for users with this change!

💟 Newsela Writing

The below features have been added to Newsela Writing:

Newsela Writing Assignments for all Newsela ELA Novel and Book Studies Collection

These ready-to-use assignments will provide teachers with a new way to engage students in a deeper analysis of the novels they’re teaching.

📚 Content Updates

Newsela content is updated on a regular basis. During this time period the following content updates were introduced:

Fishtank Learning Curriculum Complement

We are excited to announce the launch of the Newsela curriculum complement for the revised Fishtank Learning units. This ELA curriculum complement includes a curated set of Newsela texts and videos designed to deepen student understanding and build background knowledge.

For OpenSciEd® Curriculum Complement - K-5 Expansion

With OpenSciEd’s new elementary science curriculum, educators need engaging, age-appropriate resources to support student exploration and sensemaking. Each grade in the K–5 Curriculum Complement includes a curated set of Newsela texts and videos that build background knowledge, spark curiosity, and connect science concepts to the real world. This expansion ensures that teachers have high-quality supplemental materials to bring OpenSciEd’s investigations to life for younger learners.

Texas Curriculum Complements for Newsela ELA—Now Available in Spanish

We are excited to announce that our Texas Curriculum Complements for Newsela ELA contain 100% of the texts that are now available in Spanish!

• HMH Into Reading (Texas Edition)

• HMH Into Literature (Texas Edition)

• Savvas myPerspectives (Texas Edition)

• Texas ELAR

• Odell Education Texas High School Literacy Program

Curriculum Complement for CommonLit 360

We are launching a new Curriculum Complement for CommonLit 360, specifically designed for grades 6-12. This complement includes a rich collection of videos and texts that comprehensively cover each unit, aligning with the CommonLit 360 scope and sequences. Recognizing that the CommonLit curriculum has updated some grades and units, we have provided content options for both previous and newer versions to ensure flexibility for our users. As CommonLit continues to publish new versions, we are committed to updating our complement accordingly.

Newsela Decodable Texts for Older Readers

We're expanding our content library to include specialized decodable texts for striving. These decodable texts are particularly helpful for students with some exposure to phonics concepts, allowing them to practice phonics skills, especially with multisyllabic words, and build confidence by successfully decoding words. This also helps avoid the misconception that these read exactly like a decodable for younger readers.

For Lab-Aids Middle School Curriculum Complement

The Newsela Curriculum Complement for Lab-Aids provides curated texts and videos aligned to units, helping students deepen understanding, build scientific literacy, and make connections to the world beyond the classroom. With more districts investing in Lab-Aids as a core program, this complement ensures teachers have flexible, high-quality resources to support every learner.

🛠️ Fixes

Every technological tool runs into hiccups here and there. If you run into any technical issues please submit a report to our team so we could go ahead and fix it!

Domain Cutover

The URL domain for Newsela changed to app.newsela.com