As Norwalk Schools created its newest science program, they wanted to put literacy at the forefront in order to engage all students and differentiate instruction. By starting with clearly defined science phenomena as the foundation, they were able to leverage Newsela’s content along with other digital tools to create a scope and sequence that was accessible to ELL, Special Ed, and General Education students. Norwalk takes a stance of teacher and student empowerment, encouraging teachers to use Newsela’s lexile level tools to differentiate in a way that builds student reading skills and provides all students a pathway to learn science.