Teacher appreciates free newspapers as instructional tool

I wanted to say thank you for providing free newspapers to our classroom this year. We received newspapers weekly and the students really seemed to enjoy them. I focused on having students recognize and read the main text features in a newspaper, such as the title, cost, heading, text, captions, photographs, maps, diagrams, advertisements and table of contents sections, as well as many others. They really seem to hae a handle on this important skill. It was one area our third and fourth grade students struggled with in the MSP in previous years, and although I teach it within our reading series, the newpaper is a great real-life example they will see throughout their lives.

My students were excited to keep up on some of the current events, reading some of the more appropriate articles for this age group. A favorite and new thing for my class was the comics section. I remember reading the comics as a child and was excited to be able to show my students where they are so they can find them on their own. Students are also very aware of website addresses because of our weekly text feature searches. They also really enjoy finding our Robust Vocabulary words within the articles.

Thank you again for this opportunity and allowing me to use your resources as a teaching tool.

Stephanie Firl

Columbia Ridge Elementary