NIE PROGRAM ENCOURAGES KIDS TO READ

The Southeast Missourian is an additional educational tool for area teachers, which the Newspaper in Education program encourages.

The program is being celebrated across the nation this week.

The goal of NIE is to reinforce a lifetime reading habit and to teach students to acquire and value information from newspapers and other media.

"I read the paper thoroughly every morning and then try to make lesson plans from what's in it," said Martha Short, a fifth-grade teacher at North Elementary School in Fruitland. "Some days tend to lend themselves to certain subjects better than others."

Short, who has participated in NIE since its inception, said the program provides limitless potential for teachers looking for unique educational tools. Nearly everything included in a newspaper from front-page news to sports scores to advertisements and pictures can be incorporated in math, science, language, social studies or art studies, she said.

"If you can integrate the newspaper and find something taught in your curriculum or find something new that you weren't using, it's a wonderful tool," she said. "You've got the freedom here if you want to use it."

For more than a decade the Southeast Missourian has encouraged literacy through the NIE program. This year more than 6,300 newspapers and Mini-Page sections are delivered weekly to schools in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Scott City, Chaffee and Oak Ridge.

The program was funded in part by a $28,500 grant received this year from the YELL Foundation, said Mark Kneer, director of circulation for the Southeast Missourian. The YELL Foundation, short for Youth Education Literacy and Learning, is a nonprofit organization that promotes literacy programs with proceeds from the sale of special editions of the newspaper each fall.

"The grant from YELL covers about half of the total cost of the program," said Kneer. "We try to include schools that participate in YELL and also were originally included in the United Way area, since the original program was started by the United Way. If they're outside of those areas, they actually sold papers at that school to pay for the program."

School administrators canvass teachers each fall and submit requests to Kneer for the total number of newspapers needed daily. The response is generally great, but in most cases we are able to fill all the requests to 100 percent," he said.

Recipients of the newspapers, which are provided to the schools free of charge, are Cape Girardeau Alternative Education Center, Jefferson Elementary School, St. Mary Cathedral School, Louis J. Schultz School, Trinity Lutheran School, Central Junior High School, Franklin Elementary School, St. Vincent de Paul School, Alma Schrader Elementary School, Cottonwood, Clippard Elementary School, Cape Christian School, Blanchard Elementary School, Central High School, Cape Girardeau Career and Technology School, Orchard Elementary School, Jackson High School, West Lane Elementary School, Jackson Alternative School, R.O.. Hawkins Junior High, St. Paul Lutheran School, Immaculate Conception, South Elementary School, North Elementary School, Scott City Elementary, Scott City High School, St. Joseph School, Chaffee High School, Millersville Attendance Center, Nell Holcomb School, Gordonville Attendance Center, Notre Dame Regional High School and Oak Ridge Elementary School.