Digital Tool- Newsela

 Newsela is an excellent resource for educators who teach a variety of reading levels in one room. You can teach the same article/content and vary the reading level/target language to individual students.

Tutorial:

Newsela can be accessed through the URL linked above or through clever, an app used in Providence (not sure about other districts). I find it easier to access newsela through clever because my google account is already linked as well as my google classrooms, so when assigning content, you can post it easily via google classroom on the clever app.

Once you have clicked on the newsela app, you can see that you have the option to sync your classrooms. I recommend doing this step so that when posting content, you can differentiate accordingly for students in targeted classes.

After you have selected the classrooms (this is really just a step for middle - high school teachers), you will be prompted to choose the grade levels/reading Lexile's that you want accessible for students (K - 10) for example, and the subject of the material.

There is a browse tab at the top left where you can search content in English or in Spanish.

When you have selected the text that you want to work with/teach, you will have the option to change the grade level/reading lexile of the text. In the image below, it says grade 9. Where it says assign, you would select the class that you teach, and it gives you after the list of names you want to assign the work to from that class. I could select all students if that group of 9th graders were all on grade level, or I could assign it to a few students only- post it, and then go back, change the grade level, and reassign it to others within the same class on different reading levels. You could essentially assign the same article at 10 different grade levels to 10 different students within the same class.

Students on their end can also change the Lexile level of the text if when assigned the text, they are struggling and feel that the need a more accessible text. The teacher can also assign the content in Spanish when searching articles in Spanish, or students can also change the target language into Spanish after it was already assigned to them.