NEWSPAPERS IN EDUCATION

Amber Patton and her furry friend read a story in the Southeast Missourian as part of the Newspapers in Education program at Franklin Elementary School.

Whitney Duncan pointed to Washington on the map in Ruth Rhodes' classroom to show the site of the dateline in a newspaper story.

Fourth-graders in Ruth Rhodes class at Franklin Elementary School in Cape Girardeau find parts of speech, study geography and compute math problems using the Southeast Missourian newspaper as their textbook.

The fourth-graders are among hundreds of students in Southeast Missouri participating in the Newspaper in Education program.

This is Newspaper in Education Week, a time set aside to look at the benefits of using newspapers in classrooms.

Teachers say the benefits are numerous. Rhodes, for example, said, "We use the newspaper across the curriculum. Obviously we use it in social studies. Read news articles and then find those places on the map."

She added that often stories in the newspaper tie in with the social studies topics her students study.

In English, students practice identifying parts of speech in the news stories. "We cut those out and do a sheet of all the verbs or pronouns or adjectives," Rhodes said.

The students also read news stories to enhance their reading skills. "We find the main idea, the main character and the main event," Rhodes said.

The teacher has also developed a way to help her students learn note-taking skills using the newspaper. Students use index cards and take notes from news stories. Then they put away the news stories, and using only the notes on the index cards, must rewrite the story.

To help students get practice with multiplication and other math skills, students use grocery ads and other ads to determine how much items cost. "We will plan a picnic and figure out how much it would cost," Rhodes said.

The ideas for using newspapers are as creative as the teachers using them. Even the youngest readers use the paper to identify capital letters. Older students analyze the news, how it's written and how it impacts our lives.

"The newspaper is a change of pace from textbooks," Rhodes said. "And it's full of things that are happening right now. Often students find something about their friends and that's exciting."

The fourth-graders also check out the weather drawing on the Missourian's front page. Several times the artwork has been done by a classmate.

Mark Kneer, director of circulation and marketing for the Southeast Missourian, said the newspaper has made a commitment to bringing the news to classrooms.

"It's so important as a foundation for our future readers," Kneer said. One of the goals is to help develop a daily newspaper habit in youngsters who will carry that habit throughout their lives.

"We want to give teachers tools. We want to help people learn to read, but we also want to make an investment in our future," Kneer said. "We think it's a wise investment."

The project is funded in part through YELL. On one day during the fall, a special edition of the Southeast Missourian is hawked from street corners. Half the proceeds go to the NIE program. The other half goes to other literacy projects. In addition, all the advertising sold for the YELL edition goes toward NIE funding. However, Kneer said, the project runs into the red every year. The Southeast Missourian picks up the remainder of the tab.

Money raised through YELL provides 3,856 Southeast Missourians plus 3,100 Mini Pages delivered to school classrooms each week. Over half of the newspapers are delivered on Tuesdays.

The newspapers go to 27 schools and an estimated 85 classrooms.

"We have far more requests than we can fill," Kneer said. "There is a great need out there and teachers are doing a fantastic job with the newspapers. Kids are having fun and learning at the same time."