Teachers' Home
KS2 & 3 NEWSPAPER
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
First News is the only weekly newspaper published for KS2 and KS3 students. Take a look at Issue 240 now. Every week, the specialist First News journalists provide up-to-date, insightful and dynamic articles on a range of subjects from politics to popular culture, from science to citizenship, which are relevant and accessible to an audience spanning 7-14 years old. First News has been published weekly for five years and is found on the news stand in supermarkets and newsagents along with all the other broadsheets and tabloids. Schools can subscribe to a term-time subscription.
It is a fantastic teaching resource. Even reluctant readers pick up the paper to find out what is going on in their world. Whether it’s news, sport or green issues, something will spark their interest, and as a teacher you can safely put the newspaper down on their desk knowing the well-written text and photographs are aimed at readers in KS2 & 3.
KS2 Guided Reading Resource
Subscribing to six weekly copies makes the perfect non-fiction guided reading resource. Different groups can read the current weekly issue each day and be shared with other classes. The following week you will have a brand new issue with the next week's stories for them to find out about. The paper has regular sections sections such as The News in Pictures, Home News and Animal Stories which makes it easy for you to ask pupils about stories they have read even if you haven't been working directly with that group. With the interactive whiteboard version, the whole class can read and discuss articles - and all see the engaging photographs! Reading newspapers on a regular basis means pupils will have a very good understanding of the style of writing needed when they come to write their own articles in literacy or as a way of presenting information in other curriculum areas.
KS3 Literacy Resource
As well as being an excellent reading resource for Year 7 and the more reluctant readers in Year 8, it is a great starting point for non-fiction writing. Each week, you'll have a new set of up-to-date and relevant articles to analyse, change the headlines, write a set of further research questions, to compare with news sources - just to give a few examples.
KS2 & 3 Citizenship
First News is a perfect starting point for citizenship studies. National and global issues are reported in an appropriate and sensitive way. As the stories accompanied by high quality images, all students access and begin to engage with the some of the more contentitious issues in their world.
If you've not read First News before, Take a Look now!
