NewsELA

Week of February 22^nd - February 26^th

I have known about NewsELA for about a year and a half now and in all honesty, I was really excited to integrate this app into my classroom. According to their website, “Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that's always relevant: daily news.” The app sure does not disappoint from my eyes. It is easy to use and great for the classroom. “Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student.” That is why I love it! NewsELA is a great way to differentiate instruction and find a reading level that every student in the class can read from and feel great about themselves.

I used this app first and foremost during guided reading. This worked out wonderful because all of the guided reading groups were reading about the same news article, but they were reading on their Lexile level. I also integrated this app into our Free Centers rotation. This was not a huge success and left most of the students confused and asking me a lot of questions.

I think this app worked during guided reading but definitely did not work during Free Centers time. So with that observation, NewsELA received mixed results from the students. My third graders gave the app an overall average score of 3.05 when asked how much they liked this reading app. That did not really surprise me at all. When the students were asked if this app made them want to read more, the results were almost split down the middle. Twelve students said yes and ten students said no. For question three, when asked if the app made the students want to read more, the average score from this question was a 3.23. Once again, there was no surprise there in my opinion. I had some students who loved the app and some students who did not. The students also rated this app with the same score of a 3.23 for question four, when asked if the app made them see themselves as better readers. I was a little shocked by this since some of my students really struggled with the app. It made me feel glad that some of the students seemed to benefit from the app and it was not a total bust like I thought it had been. Lastly, fifteen students said they would use the app again and seven said they would not. I believe that if I used this app with my higher students in the guided reading setting that this would be most fitting for my students and would best fit my classroom needs.

As a teacher, I saw so many positives to this app. First and foremost, I love that this company has created an app. During student teaching, I used NewsELA a lot during guided reading. What was hard was that it was online. I would have to print out the passages and quizzes each week for the students. The app seems so much cooler and exciting compared to a packet of papers stapled together. What I absolutely love about this app is that the teacher can give each student an iPad and they can read about the same news article or event happening in the world in words that they can understand. The app can change the Lexile level so it is fitting for a child who can read at a second grade level or a twelfth grade level. NewsELA has many categories of articles like War & Peace, Science, Money, Law, Health, Arts, Kids, and Sports. The app also labels each article by a reading standard and the purpose of the article. For example, the article I used with my students focused on the reading standard Central Idea. I was able to use the nonfiction text and have the students work on an area that they are struggling to comprehend. What I also love about this app is that it has a quiz, with a writing prompt, that the students can answer. The app sends the teachers the results and you can even set it up so you can see a graph of the students’ scores and what Lexile level the students read at. Lastly, I love that the app turns daily news into a kid-friendly matter. This allows students to become more aware of the world around them. It is hard to find nonfiction texts that students respond to, but NewsELA does a really good job of it.

The biggest negative of this app in my opinion is that it is more of an educational tool than a “fun, reading app.” The students were engaged and interested in reading, but younger students- like my third graders- could not and did not want to use this app by themselves. It was a little overwhelming for them. Students also did not like how you could not highlight or zoom in on the words. Some of my students had a hard time tracking the words as they read from the iPad screen.

This app was not one where the students would want to go pick it up and read from it on a daily basis. For this app to work the best in the classroom it has to be used in a guided setting. Students were confused and struggled to use the app on their own. The biggest change that I would make the next time I use this app in my classroom is to only let them use it during guided reading or when a teacher can sit with them. It is not an app to use during Free Centers or Daily Five. Lastly, I feel that this app is more of an instructional tool instead of a fun and exciting app for the students. Teachers might like this app and find it more as an educational tool compared to a fun, reading app for their students.