Newsela, a K–12 instructional content platform, has announced a partnership with NWEA to help teachers meaningfully differentiate instruction and engage all learners at a time when widening learning gaps call for even more tailored instruction. NWEA’s MAP Growth reading assessment gives educators the data needed to understand what students are ready to learn. That same data can now be used to automatically set student reading levels on Newsela.
Newsela offers authentic, relevant instructional content at five reading levels, ranging from current events and popular culture to primary sources, historical fiction, and examples of real-world phenomena. NWEA’s MAP Growth assessments support growth for students, illuminating each student’s learning needs, and help teachers to target instruction and administrators to make well-informed system-wide decisions. Used together, Newsela and MAP Growth will help districts to quickly know students’ starting points and provide authentic content they can access.
“When teachers assess their students, there should be zero lag time between receiving assessment results and plunging into lessons that are powered by hyper-engaging, authentic content that specifically addresses the assessment results,” said Matthew Gross, CEO of Newsela. “By combining NWEA’s premier benchmark assessments with Newsela content that students love, teachers can finally achieve that goal.”
Newsela customers will be able to opt in to connecting NWEA MAP Growth data and Newsela together, and when they assess their students using MAP Growth, the data will be used to automatically set the students’ reading levels. They can then differentiate instruction with Newsela content using the Lexile® measure of reading level. The next time students take the MAP Growth assessment, their Newsela reading levels will be updated automatically, so instruction will continue to meet them where they are.
“As the education community turns its attention toward recovery from COVID-19 school disruptions, having powerful tools that integrate quality growth data with instruction is critical,” said Chris Minnich, CEO of NWEA. “I am excited for this partnership with Newsela that will help enhance the abilities of educators and ultimately help all kids learn.”
