Power Words

Power Words is a Newsela ELA feature that includes in-context definitions of Tier II vocabulary words, allows for those words to be read aloud, and has vocabulary activities to help students practice at the end of an article.

Articles that include Power Words have 3-5 of them embedded at each level. Clicking a Power Word reveals a definition of the word as it’s used in the article. In the activities panel, students can complete Power Words activities.  

Teachers have a few options for reviewing the Power Words activity:

  • Power Words tab under Reports: View a list of students and their Power Words averages and progress. Click a student's name to view more details about their Power Words activity. 

    Background section

  • Assignments tab: View how many students have viewed an assignment. Click on an assignment to go to the Assignments Review Page, where you can see the Power Words average for the assignment and the number of Power Words activities completed for the assignment.

    Background section

  • Article page: View the Power Words average for the assignment and the number of Power Words activities completed for the assignment.

    Background section

Power Words are selected from Newsela’s Academic Word List (AWL) of Tier II academic vocabulary words, organized by grade level. Students who master these words will be well prepared to read complex texts across a variety of subjects.

Grade 2

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

Grade 7

Grade 8 

Grades 9-10

Grades 11-12

Words on the Newsela AWL are organized into families. Each family consists of a headword (e.g. assume) and corresponding subwords (e.g. assumes, assuming, assumption). Our list includes families, not just single words. Our articles may include any variation of an academic word (e.g. approach, approaches, approaching) based on the sentence structure and context of the article.