QUICK RESOURCE SHEET #22

Using the newspaper – Part II

While many teachers incorporate news articles into their language lessons, not all teachers are familiar with the special resources made available to teachers and students by newspapers. Some have web sites dedicated to teachers, with ready-to-use lesson plans, news summaries, quizzes, and much more. The best of these sites have separate sections for students, teachers, and parents, including tips for developing the skills used in newspaper reading. It’s also easy to find special activities for young newspaper readers. A few of these sites are linked below.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/

“The New York Times Learning Network is a free service for students in grades 3-12, their teachers and parents. The site is updated Monday through Friday throughout the year. Students can read the day's top stories using Knowledge Tools, take a news quiz about today's world, and play special crossword puzzles. Students can also submit a letter to the editor, ask a reporter a question, or submit a science question and search through the Science Q&A archive. They can also expand their vocabularies and practice their verbal test-taking skills.

Teachers can access a daily lesson plan for grades 6-12, written in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Each lesson plan and the article it references can be printed out for classroom use. Previous lessons are available in the archive and in thematic lesson plan units. Teachers can also use News Snapshot, aimed for grades 3-5, to explore current events through New York Times photos and related questions. The site additionally provides teachers with the latest education news from the newspaper. Parents can enhance their child's understanding of current events using Conversation Starters, join an online discussion, explore the family movie guide or participate with their children in the activities in the student section.”

http://www.postnewseducation.com/default.asp

“The purpose of Newspaper In Education at The Denver Newspaper Agency is to promote literacy and civic awareness, to foster kid-safe Internet opportunities, and to provide a voice for youth through in-paper content. Targeting school-aged youth, their teachers and parents, these goals are met by:

• providing high-quality materials which utilize either The Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News as the primary text,
• creating programs which appeal to the changing needs of the education community,
• publishing in-paper content written by and for youth in The Post and the syndicated, kid-friendly Mini Page in the Rocky Mountain News. “

http://www.bangkokpost.com/education/index.htm

“This site is designed primarily for those whose first language is not English. It will help you learn to read a daily English-language newspaper. The site contains:

• fresh material, updated six days a week, consisting of the columns we do for the Bangkok Post in our "Improving Your English with the Bangkok Post" programme, that's our home page. There is also a word of the day for building your useful newspaper vocabulary;
• timeless material, dealing with aspects of the newspaper or of language learning which remain consistent year after year – writing styles, basic newspaper content, reading strategies, vocabulary development, and more.”