What’s new on IXL – November & December 2024

At IXL, we never stop adding new features and skills to our award-winning teaching and learning platform, so you can always trust we’re on pace with students’ evolving needs. That’s why we compile a list of our top new features to help you—as a learner, educator, or parent—get the most out of IXL.

Keep reading below for a roundup of releases from the last two months of 2024, including an AI-powered tool for teachers, a new IXL LevelUp Assessment report for schools and districts, Lightning Jams, a built-in calculator for the IXL Diagnostic, and more! To stay current with our latest updates, follow IXL on Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn.

Table of contents:

Major releases

Spark Studio

We’re excited to share a brand-new product from IXL: Spark Studio! Spark Studio provides a suite of AI-powered tools to support teachers’ daily tasks.

Step into the studio to spark new ideas for your lessons, and leave invigorated with a full batch of materials, including:

Lesson plans
Fun activities
Worksheets
Scaffolding ideas
Translated resources
And so much more!

Access to Spark Studio is complimentary for the 2024-25 school year for educators with a US edition IXL license. Teachers and administrators can give it a try by selecting it from their My IXL tab. Teachers can also find Spark Studio on their dashboards.

Lightning Jam

Get ready for a whole new way to Jam! Teachers can now create Lightning Jams, fast-paced interactive learning competitions.

Lightning Jam is a fun way to review material while giving students the opportunity to show what they know! Much like the Group Jam teachers know and love, in a Lightning Jam students see the same question at the exact same time, but they also earn points for answering each question quickly and correctly.

During a Lightning Jam:

Students will earn 100 points for each correct answer.
Students have the opportunity to earn bonus points for answering quickly and correctly.
The top three students with the highest scores are highlighted in the “Top of the Jam.”
Each student can also see their own place in the rankings, helping to motivate them to race for the top.

Teachers can start a Lightning Jam from their dashboard, or within the “Teacher Tools” section of the skill they’d like to work on with the class. When you choose to start a Group Jam, you’ll have the option to make it a Lightning Jam instead.

IXL LevelUp Assessment Standards Performance report for school and district administrators

School and district administrators can now better leverage the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark with the new LevelUp Assessment Standards Performance report!

This powerful report shows you exactly how well your students know each of your state’s standards, enabling you to plan for your state’s assessments with precision and head into end-of-year testing with confidence.

The report classifies students into four categories for each standard based on their LevelUp Benchmark results:

Likely knows
Partially knows
Doesn’t know
Not enough data

Each standard can be expanded to show data by teacher and individual student, as well as by school for the district-level report. Exports are available for all standards, by individual standard, and by individual student for Benchmarks. Data from the LevelUp Assessment’s Real-Time Mode can also be exported.

This report is available for states with state-specific versions of the LevelUp Assessment.

An image of the LevelUp Assessment Standards Performance report. The report shows data for a spring benchmark, breaking down how well students know Common Core State Standards for Grade 3 using bar graphs.

Built-in calculator for the IXL Diagnostic

We’ve added an in-assessment calculator tool to the US edition’s IXL Diagnostic, both in Real-Time mode and Snapshot mode!

The calculator will appear on select middle- and high-school-level math questions where calculator use is appropriate, helping students stay focused on IXL assessments while better preparing them for state tests.

Depending on the question, students will see either a four-function calculator or a scientific calculator. They can toggle the calculator by clicking on the icon on the right side of the arena, underneath the Scratchpad’s pencil icon.

Administrators can easily control calculator access. On the admin settings page, primary and lead administrators can adjust which questions the calculator is visible for on their account. Admins can toggle between showing the calculator for questions at grade 6 and higher or grade 8 and higher.

IXL Science for UK and Australia

IXL’s United Kingdom and Australian curriculum has expanded its horizons with the addition of primary school science!

These new science skills align with the UK national curricula and Australia’s state and territorial curricula. We’ve also created dedicated skill plans for each UK country and the New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia territories in Australia.

IXL’s curriculum covers a wide array of topics—from physical science, Earth and space science, and life science to scientific inquiry and engineering design—to cater to the diverse interests of all students.

Science skills follow a unique scoring system specifically designed to support the immersive and rich nature of the science curriculum. Each science concept is broken down into different steps to help students learn and check for understanding. Students progress through skills in stages, and once they complete multiple stages they achieve mastery of the skill!

IXL subscribers can preview science skills with the possibility to upgrade their subscriptions for unlimited access.

IXL math posters

Help your IXL-ers learn essential math skills and brighten up your learning space with IXL’s delightful math posters! These premium, eye-catching posters reinforce addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts to build kids’ confidence and speed in math.

Each poster is covered in double-sided waterproof lamination, so you can write on them with dry erase markers and just wipe them off when you’re done. Work problems out right on your wall, draw lines to show parallels between different math facts, or add extra digits to modify the numbers on the poster.

IXL’s math posters are available now on IXL’s Amazon store.

Four IXL math posters (covering addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, respectively) over a blue background.

Feature updates

Redesigned Assessment tab for administrators

Administrators will now see an updated Assessment tab! This new tab has more information about IXL’s assessment suite to help admins understand the full range of assessments available to them. It also features the latest research on the predictive validity of IXL’s assessments.

Webpage showing, from top to bottom, IXL

Updated teacher and administrator assessment report names

We’ve updated several assessment report names across teacher and administrator analytics! These new names will make IXL’s assessments easier to differentiate, as well as make teacher and administrator reports more consistent with one another.

The following report names have been updated:

Administrator reports:

LevelUp Benchmark Results -> LevelUp Assessment Results
LevelUp Universal Screener Results -> Universal Screener Results

Teacher reports:

Benchmark Overview -> LevelUp Assessment Overview
Benchmark Strand Analysis -> LevelUp Assessment Strand Analysis
Benchmark Standards Performance -> LevelUp Assessment Standards Performance

LevelUp Assessment data now appears in Progress and Growth report for schools

School administrators can now view LevelUp Assessment data on the Progress and Growth report! This will help school admins better leverage the LevelUp Assessment to answer key questions about usage and growth.

The Progress and Growth report will now show both LevelUp Assessment and IXL Diagnostic data for how many students have current levels (defined as completed within the past 30 days), the students’ average score, and their average monthly growth.

Scoring improvements for the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment

We’ve updated the IXL LevelUp Math Assessment to provide clearer scores for students who are far above or far below grade level. Previously, high or low-performing students had their scores capped. For example, third-grade students were unable to achieve scores above 570.

With this change we have removed those caps, ensuring that all students receive a precise score regardless of their performance level. These students also see questions better tailored to their ability level.

Additionally, strands that don’t apply to all grades now have minimum and maximum scores for all students. Students who do not meet the minimum strand score will see their score reported with a “<”, such as “<780”. Students who exceed the maximum strand score will see their score reported with a “+”, such as “780+.”

For example, the Fractions strand only includes content ranging from 1st grade to the beginning of 7th grade. So a 4th grader who is proficient in all fractions content will receive a score of 700+.

The maximum overall score will continue to be 920.

IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment for iPhone

IXL’s iPhone and iPad apps support the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment! This gives classrooms more flexibility in how students can complete their assessments.

Extended time accommodations for the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment

Administrators can now set extended time accommodations for individual students for the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment. This ensures that schools and districts can use the LevelUp Benchmark Assessment with students who have extended time as part of their IEP or 504 plan.

By default, the scheduled mode of the IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark has a 60-minute time limit and each question is limited to 3 minutes. Now, administrators of any type can extend both of these timers to 150%, 200%, or unlimited time for individual students.

Before beginning the assessment, students will see how much time they have been granted for the test. Some administrator and teacher reports now indicate which students completed an assessment with an extended time accommodation. Admins will see extended time status in their export of the LevelUp Assessment Results report, while teachers will see extended time as a column on the Benchmark Overview report.

Assessment notifications for teachers

Teachers will now receive notifications for scheduled IXL LevelUp Math Benchmarks and IXL Universal Screeners. These notifications help make scheduled assessments easier to navigate.

These new assessment notifications will remind teachers when:

A new assessment window is starting in the next week
An assessment window just started
An assessment window is almost over, and students still need to complete it
An assessment window just ended

Exporting for LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment

Teachers can export LevelUp Math Benchmark Assessment scores from the Benchmark Overview report! Scores will be exported into a CSV file, which teachers can freely download and share to facilitate analysis.

Exports are available for both past Benchmark windows and most recent levels, which includes real-time scores. By default, exports will include both students’ overall and strand-specific scores for the Math LevelUp Assessment. When “Most recent levels” is selected, teachers may also optionally select to include current ELA Diagnostic scores in the same export.

Progress indicator in the LevelUp Benchmark

Students will now see their progress towards reaching a pinpointed score when working in a LevelUp Benchmark window. Just like in the IXL Diagnostic in Snapshot mode, the progress indicator can be found in the top right of the arena.

Recommended LevelUp Assessment skills appear on Recommendations wall

Students using the IXL LevelUp Math Assessment will see skill recommendations from their LevelUp Assessment Action Plan on the Recommendations wall, as well as on their student dashboards! This will make it easier for learners to find the best math skills to help them make progress.

LevelUp Assessment recommendations appear alongside all existing types of recommendations. Like recommendations from IXL’s Classic Diagnostic, LevelUp Assessment recommendations are tagged as “From the arena.”

To help students understand the value of their assessment work, IXL also highlights when students unlock new recommendations in the Real-Time mode of the LevelUp Assessment.

A message at the top of the LevelUp Assessment window says "You

IXL LevelUp Math Benchmark standards reports for more states

Teachers in Georgia, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania now have custom-built standards reports for the LevelUp Math Benchmark aligned to their state standards!

With this standards report, teachers can track their students’ knowledge of state standards based on their scores from the LevelUp Benchmark.

Stay tuned as we continue to release additional state standards reports in the coming months.

We’ve introduced a tooltip to improve visibility of the Spanish toggle for students with teacher-enabled Spanish support taking the LevelUp Assessment. This tooltip ensures that students are fully aware of the Spanish translation option available to them, creating a more accessible experience.

The tooltip will appear when the student first enters the arena for the LevelUp Assessment in both Real-Time mode and Benchmark mode. It makes it easier for students to locate the toggle and clearly informs them that, once the assessment begins, they cannot change their language preference.

Assessment selection setting now visible through end of school year

To give administrators more clarity on IXL’s two assessment options for PK-8 math, the assessment selection setting to toggle between the IXL LevelUp Math Assessment and the IXL Classic Diagnostic is now visible through the end of the school year. Previously, this setting only appeared during a 90-day window from the start of the school year.

Lead administrator approval for Common Assessments

Enjoy smoother approvals for Common Assessments! Now lead administrators can approve and publish Common Assessments for single schools, letting them help out in the approval process. Previously, all Common Assessments needed approval from the primary administrator.

At the school level, lead admins can approve and publish Common Assessments for their school. At the district level, lead admins can approve and publish Common Assessments assigned to a single school. Common Assessments assigned to multiple schools will still need to be approved by the primary administrator.

Searching for schools and courses when assigning Common Assessments

Administrators can now search for a school or course name when assigning Common Assessments. This enables administrators to quickly sort through many courses or schools without having to scroll through a lengthy dropdown, speeding up Common Assessment assignment.

An administrator assigning a Common Assessment. At the top of the Courses dropdown menu is a search bar.

New support languages: Dutch, Samoan, and Swedish

IXL provides language support in more than 60 languages, enabling all students to make progress in essential skills, even if they are still building their English language abilities.

We recently added support for additional languages:

Dutch, a West Germanic language primarily spoken in the Netherlands, Suriname, and the Flanders region of Belgium.
Samoan, a Polynesian language spoken in the Samoan Islands.
Swedish, a North Germanic language spoken in Sweden and parts of Finland.

To turn on language support for learners, go to your Profile & Settings page and “Enable translation support” for select students.

Skill plan updates and new skills

New math skills

We’ve released a bunch of new math skills! New skills include:

Elementary school:

Two-dimensional shapes in the real world (Kindergarten)
Add multiples of 10 or 100 (Grade 2)
Subtract multiples of 10 or 100 (Grade 2)
Match addition and subtraction word problems to equations – up to 100 (Grade 2)
Attributes of polygons (Grade 3)
Multiply three numbers using properties (Grade 3)
Attributes of quadrilaterals (Grade 3)
Use equations to solve multi-step addition and subtraction word problems (Grade 4)
Multi-step word problems with fractions and mixed numbers (Grade 5)

Middle school:

Solve one-step equations with decimals and fractions (Grade 6)
Rate of change of a linear function: tables (Grade 8)

High school:

Approximate the area under a curve: trapezoids (Calculus)
Find indefinite integrals: mixed review (Calculus)

New ELA skills

We’ve added two new decodable text skills, one each for kindergarten and grade 1, focused on the short “i” pattern. These skills use engaging texts paired with delightful illustrations to help build foundational reading skills.

New science skills

We’ve released a bundle of new science skills ranging from elementary to high school! New skills include:

How do magnets push and pull each other? (Grade 1)
Evaluate multiple design solutions to prevent erosions (Grade 2)
Conductors and insulators (Grade 4)
Collisions and car safety features (Grade 6)
Effects of ultraviolet waves (Grade 7)
Factors affecting climate: surface ocean currents (Grade 7)
Kelp forests: factors affecting biodiversity (Biology)
Construct explanations of natural selection (Biology)
Evaluate fossil evidence of evolution (Biology)
The chemistry of photosynthesis (Biology)

We also released a few science skills for Canada, including:

How do magnets attract and repel each other? (Grade 2)
Factors affecting climate: surface ocean currents (Grades 6 and 8)
Effects of ultraviolet waves (Grade 8)

New social studies skills

We’ve released several new social studies skills for elementary school through high school, including:

Holi (Grades K-3)
Christmas (Grades K-3)
Ramadan (Grades K-3)
Dia de los Muertos (Grades K-3)
Susan B. Anthony (Grades K-3)
Rosa Parks (Grades K-3)
Native peoples of the Southwest (Grades 6-8)
Source analysis: the Federalist Papers (Civics)
Supreme Court cases on the Fourteenth Amendment: incorporation (Civics)

New textbook skill plans

We’ve released skill plans for the following textbooks:

Math:

Georgia Mathematics Instructional Resources (K-5)
Eureka Math² New York (K-8)
enVision Math Tennessee (K-Alg 2)
Big Ideas Okalahoma Math (2025) (K-Alg 2)
Eureka Math² (Grades 7-8)
Carnegie Learning Texas Math Solution (Geometry and Alg 2)

Social studies:

Science

PhD Science (Levels 3-5)

Skill plans for IXL’s Ultimate Workbooks grades K-8

We’ve created skill plans for IXL’s K-8 Ultimate Math Workbooks! These skill plans make it easier to access the related IXL skills for their workbook. Now you’ll be able to navigate to all of each workbooks’ related skills from one central location, rather than typing each skill’s ID as you go through the book.

New math skill plans for IB curricula

We’ve released math skill plans for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme and Diploma Programme in the US edition. These skill plans support planning, teaching, and learning aligned to IB’s curriculum frameworks across the following courses:

Middle Years Programme: Years 1-3, Years 4-5 standard, and Years 4-5 extended, which are equivalent to grades 6-10 in the US
Diploma Programme: Applications and Interpretation (Standard Level and High Level) and Analysis and Approaches (Standard Level and High Level), which are equivalent to grades 11-12 in the US

New standards skill plans

We’ve released skill plans for the following standards:

Idaho Content Standards (adopted in 2024): Social studies (Grades K-8, American Government)
TEKS Social studies (Grades K-8, U.S. Government)
TEKS Algebraic Reasoning (Algebra)

New test prep skill plans

We’ve released skill plans for the following assessments:

Star Early Literacy Assessment (Grades PK-3+)
- This also includes personalized study plans
Arkansas ATLAS (Grades K-2 for math and ELA, and Biology)
Louisiana LEAP (Grades 5-8 for social studies, Civics, and Biology)
Maine NWEA MAP (K-6+ for math and reading, 2-12 for language)
- This also includes personalized study plans
Maryland MCAP (Government)
Maryland MISA (Life Science)
Missouri Biology and Government End-of-Course Assessments
Ontario OSSLT and EQAO assessments (Grades 3, 6, and 9 for math, as well as grades 3, 6, and 11 for English)
Texas STAAR (Biology)
Vermont VTCAP (Grades 3-8 for math and ELA, and grades 5 and 8 for science)
Virginia SOL assessment (Grade 4 for social studies)
West Virginia WVGSA (Grades 3-8 for math and ELA, and grades 5 and 8 for science)

Winter spotlight plans are back

IXL’s Winter Adventures returns to provide students with a fun educational “camp” for the winter season! The Winter Adventures skill plans offer 20 days of IXL skills, challenges, and offline activities to keep students engaged while it’s cold outside. Winter Adventures is available for math and ELA in kindergarten through 8th grade. See the plans below:

Winter Adventures: Math (K-8)
Winter Adventures: Language Arts (K-8)

Additional releases

Spanish audio support for all math, science, and social studies skills

We’ve extended Spanish audio to all math, science, and social studies skills! Now, whenever a student has Spanish translations and audio enabled, they will be able to hear the Spanish translations read to them in these subjects.

To use Spanish audio support, students can select the audio button that appears in front of Spanish-translated text.

A social studies skill on early China. Above a passage about early Chinese technology, a window shows the same text translated into Spanish. There is also a blue speaker icon the student can use to hear the translated text read aloud.

New math and ELA video tutorials

We’ve released 138 new math videos in Pre-K, kindergarten, and Calculus, which means that IXL now has video tutorials for every grade level in PK-12 math! The math videos in this release cover topics such as:

Fewer, more, and same (Pre-K)
Show numbers on ten frames – up to 10 (Kindergarten)
Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Part 1 (Calculus)

We’ve also released 34 new ELA videos for grades 3-5! The ELA videos in this release cover topics such as:

Use key details to determine the main idea (Grade 3)
Read graphic organizers (Grade 4)
Commas with a series (Grade 5)

Additionally, math video tutorials for IXL Canada now cover grades Jr. K and kindergarten! We’ve released over 100 videos covering skills in both grades. We’ve also released 21 math videos for grades 4-10.

New units for Takeoff by IXL

We’ve released new Takeoff by IXL units in Kindergarten and Grade 1!

In Kindergarten Unit 8: Numbers to 20, students count up to 20 aloud and read and write numbers up to 20. They learn to think of teen numbers as 10 and 1 to 9 more.
In Kindergarten Unit 9: Numbers to 100, students count up to 100 aloud, read and write numbers up to 100, count forward starting from any number, and skip count by tens.
In Grade 1 Unit 9: Numbers to 120, students count to 120 by 1s and by 10s. They read and write numbers in this range and represent up to 120 objects with a written number.
In Grade 1 Unit 10: Place value, students learn to think of two-digit numbers as a certain number of tens and ones. They use place value to find ten more or less than a given number and to compare numbers.
In Grade 1 Unit 11: Addition and subtraction within 100, students use place value, properties of operations, and various models to add two numbers with sums up to 100. They also subtract a multiple of 10 from another multiple of 10 within 100.

Expanded Spanish support for Takeoff by IXL

We’ve released Spanish translation support for 15 additional Takeoff units!

Kindergarten – Units 3, 4, and 5
Grade 1 – Units 4, 5, 6, and 7
Grade 2 – Units 7, 8, and 9
Grade 3 – Units 7 and 8
Grade 4 – Unit 8
Grade 5 – Units 7 and 8

These units now have Spanish translations available for the student workbook PDFs, independent practice PDFs, mid-unit check-in, and unit test.

New math skills for Canada, the UK, and Australia

We’ve released new skills for Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia! We added five new Calculus skills in all three editions, including:

Additionally, we released a few new skills just for Australia, including:

Use expanded form to add three-digit numbers (Year 3)
Make inferences from multiple samples (Year 8)
Convert between rational exponents and radicals (Year 10)
Approximate solutions to equations using tables (Year 10)
Find the lowest common multiple of monomials (Year 10)

Plus, we have one new skill for the UK:

Modelling projectile motion with quadratic equations

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