C&MA Sun Kei Secondary School English Department PLC Sharing

Catering for Learner Diversity Through Newsela

Brief Introduction to Newsela
In a classroom with mixed abilities, teachers may have a hard time using a piece of standardized text or finding a text
suitable for all students to read together. Newsela is a free app (with some paid PRO features) which allows learners
of different abilities to read the same text or focus on the same issue as Newsela has linguistically modified the texts
in order to match the proficiency level of the reader.

For Teachers (Screenshots from Desktop)

Step 1 – Signing Up
Sign up using your email at https://newsela.com.
(Throughout the process, you may need to provide some information about the school.)

Step 2 – Creating a Class

Create a Class OR Import from Google Classroom

After that you will see your class, and most importantly, your Class Code.

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C&MA Sun Kei Secondary School English Department PLC Sharing

Step 3 – Choosing an Article and Creating Assignment

Preview an article and assign it to your class.

You can change it here to check the level
of difficulty of different texts. (Smaller
number = easier)
There are some default MC
questions set for students to
answer. (The difficulty of the
questions aligns with the
level of difficulty of the text)

Click here to assign

it to your class.

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C&MA Sun Kei Secondary School English Department PLC Sharing
For Students (Screenshots from iPad)
Step 1 – Signing in
Select the App ‘Newsela’. Select ‘Join’ at the front page. Enter the class code. Students will be asked to sign up
immediately.

Step 2 – Start Reading

(If students can’t see the assigned texts, ask them to ‘Join Class’ again)
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C&MA Sun Kei Secondary School English Department PLC Sharing

Students can swipe using 2 fingers to change the

level of difficulty of the text.
(OR press the bottom left key MAX to change)

Students can access Students can post

the questions here, their response to the
text here,

Suggested follow-up activities

Paper 1
- Set up more comprehension questions based on the text.
Paper 2
- Content: Good source of Writing World Topic
- Language: Select a few sentences from some easier levels and ask students to find out how they are
rewritten with more complex sentence structures and expressions in the more advanced levels.
Easy Advanced
The first job of the speaker is to prove You can produce an effective persuasive speech if you structure your
that a certain problem is important. argument as a solution to a problem. Your first job as a speaker is to
Then you must show the audience that convince your audience that a particular problem is important to them,
your idea will make things better and then you must convince them that you have the solution to make
things better.
Paper 4
- Set up some discussion questions based on the theme (e.g. What are some challenges faced by students
when they have to deliver a speech? How can students improve their speech?)

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