TEACHERS USE NEWSPAPERS AS TEACHING TOOL

More than news comes wrapped in a newspaper.

Area teachers say it is a unique teaching tool.

Martha Short, a fifth-grade teacher at North Elementary School in Fruitland, makes wide use of Southeast Missourian newspapers in her classroom.

"I want everybody to read," said Short. "I don't ever remember a time I didn't read newspapers."

Newspapers are a tool that can be used in teaching any subject. "It is reading comprehension. It's life. It's the world.

"Kids can't live in isolation. They have to look at the world around them," she said.

Short has been known to cut out articles and cut off the ending. She then makes her students write what they believe the ending would be.

The Southeast Missourian is distributed to her school as part of the Cape Girardeau newspaper's Newspaper in Education program. This is the ninth year for the program.

Last year the Southeast Missourian distributed 3,400 newspapers a week to classrooms in grades four through 12 in 33 schools throughout Cape Girardeau County and Scott City.

The newspaper also distributed about 3,300 Mini Pages to kindergarten through third-grade classrooms in those schools.

The YELL Foundation provided a $28,700 grant, which paid for about half the cost of providing newspapers in the classrooms, said Mark Kneer, Southeast Missourian circulation manager.

YELL stands for Youth Education Literacy Learning.

The foundation depends on the sale of YELL-edition newspapers each year to fund literacy programs.

Short said she often cuts out newspaper articles that deal with topics that interest individual students in her class.

"It may fit science. It may fit math or it may fit a topic we are going to talk about," she said.

Short said newspapers are a good learning tool because they deal with current affairs. "It is so alive. It is right there," she said.

"Sometimes we let children take a paper home because there is no paper at home," said Short.

Newspapers, she said, help open students' minds. "Sometimes they only hear one side at home."

Keith Kight used the newspaper to teach current events at Scott City High School.

"We used them two days a week, and quite frankly, other than what kids saw on CNN, in my classroom it was really their only exposure to current events," he said. "That kind of shocked me," said Kight.

Some students even wanted to take the newspapers home.

"A lot of them liked the classified ads better than anything," said Kight. "They would go from classified to sports and maybe the front page."

Said Kight, "I ultimately tried to get them to the editorial page."

Students, he said, often began the school year unaware of current events. By the end of the school year, they were more informed and looked forward to reading the paper, Kight said.