Video Content

Newsela features a library of over 1,000+ interactive videos in addition to our article content. These videos are available to licensed students and teachers of Newsela ELA, Newsela Social Studies, and Newsela Science.


Teachers and students can:

  • Save videos using the bookmark feature

  • Play videos, with closed-captions and/or audio descriptions

  • Read an auto-scroll transcript

  • Complete an embedded 4 question comprehension quiz

  • Assign videos

  • Add a video to an assignment alongside text and other videos

  • Share the video via Share button to Google Classroom, Remind, email, facebook, or Twitter.

Additionally, videos are curated within the lessons of five social studies course collections (premium for Newsela Social Studies): United States History: Pre-Contact to Modern Times, Civics and Engaged Citizenship, Economics and Financial Literacy, World Geography, and Ancient Civilizations.

Accessing Videos

From the homepage

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in.

  2. Click “Video” in the left-hand menu or scroll down to the video row.

  3. Click a view title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video.

From the Newsela Social Studies browse page

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in

  2. Click “Browse” in the top menu 

  3. Click “Social Studies” under the subheader, Subject Areas

  4. Click “Video” in the left-hand menu or scroll down to the video row.

  5. Click a view title or image to view the player and a transcript of the video.

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From Search

  1. Go to newsela.com and sign in.

  2. Click the search bar in the main menu at the top of the page.

  3. Enter a term, or click “search” to see all of the videos on Newsela.

  4. Click the “Video” tab.

  5. Videos that match your search term will display.

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All interactive videos on Newsela include

  1. A transcript

  2. Closed captions

  3. Audio descriptions (when applicable)

  4. A 4 question comprehension quiz

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Transcript accessibility features

  1. Autoscroll may be enabled or disabled by selecting the “Autoscroll” checkbox.

  2. Each line of the transcript is a button that when selected will move video playback to that point of the video.

  3. Transcript text size adjustments can be made by selecting the “+” and “-”  increase and decrease text size buttons under “Text Size”. 

  4. Users can choose between light and dark transcript modes by selecting the light and dark circle icon button under “Mode”.


Closed captions and audio descriptions accessibility features

  1. To enable or disable captions and/or audio descriptions, select the three dot icon button in the lower right corner of the video controls to open the options. This button is labeled “Controls for Audio Descriptions and Captions” for screen readers.

  2. Select “On” or “Off” under “Captions” and “Audio Descriptions”.

  3. Once your selections are complete, either click away from the options or select the three dot icon button again to close the controls for audio descriptions and captions. 

 

4 question comprehension quiz accessibility features

  1. The Activities panel contains four question comprehension quizzes. 

  2. Each quiz is available on-demand in the Activities panel, or via quiz buttons in the video playback progress bar. 

  3. The quizzes are also generated automatically when the quiz buttons are reached during video playback; this will cause the video to pause to allow users to navigate to the quiz.