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The Program Support PD Center team is excited to collaborate with ACLS to coordinate access to trainings and resources for Newsela.


We're here to help!

If you wish to use Newsela and need assistance creating accounts (first see the guidance below on this page), please contact ACLS Distance Education and Digital Literacy Specialist Paula Jurigian at paula.jurigian@mass.gov.

If you have questions or need support, please contact Kathleen_oconnell@worlded.org


FY23 Newsela Trainings

We will be offering six Newsela workshops and online courses this year. You can find and register for workshops on the SABES Calendar by typing "Newsela" in the "Title" field.

You can also find these "On Demand" learning opportunities on the Newsela professional development page, inlcuding these topics: 

  • Getting Started with Newsela
  • Integrating my LMS with Newsela
  • Looking for Content
  • Assigning and Customized Content
  • Assessing Students and Using Data to Plan

New to Newsela?

Newsela takes authentic content from trusted sources and makes it instruction-ready. Each text is published at five reading levels, ranging from 3rd to 12th grade. Each leveled text features a quiz and a prompt that asks students to respond in writing to what they've read. With over 14,000 texts across 20+ genres, Newsela enables educators to go deep on any subject they choose. You can learn more here

You can set up a Newsela account using either one of these methods at newsela.com:

  • If you have a Gmail or Microsoft email address provided by the institution where you work, log in using that agency Gmail or Microsoft address; or,
  • Create a username and password using your agency email

Please note that anyone may sign up for a free Newsela account using a personal email, which gives limited access to articles on current events, their corresponding reading comprehension quizzes and customizable writing prompts, and the ability to annotate these articles. You gain additional access to their library of content articles when you use your agency email.


Customized Collections for Massachusetts

Signing up through your DESE-funded agency e-mail address will give you access to materials customized for Massachusetts adult educators and students!

Sign in to Newsela with your DESE-funded agency e-mail and click on browse to find the collections created for Massachusetts:

  1. Literacy Skills Development
  2. High School Equivalency Preparation
  3. Digital Literacy
  4. Career Exploration Pathways
  5. Workforce Preparation Activities
  6. Civics Education

We welcome your feedback! Please share your feedback on these pilot collections to the SABES Newsela Coordinator Kathleen_oconnell@worlded.org


Professional Development: On Demand, Anywhere, Any Time

SABES, ACLS, and Newsela have partnered to provide five online trainings this year, supporting practitioners in using the statewide license available to ACLS-funded programs. These asynchronous recordings are available for you any time.

  1. Discovering Newsela (9/4/21): agenda and video
  2. Differentiating Instruction with Newsela (10/8/21): agenda and video
  3. Supporting Student Engagement and Guiding Inquiry with Newsela (10/22/21): agenda and video
  4. Hybrid Instruction and the Newsela–Massachusetts Custom Collection (12/3/21): agenda and video
  5. Analyzing Student Activity in Newsela (1/21/22): agenda and video