DAILY NEWS- A Simple and Effective Literacy Activity

Simple and Effective Literacy Activities: DAILY NEWS

This post is part of a series of FREE Simple and Effective Literacy Activities. To read more about my personal philosophy on how to help teach a love of all things literacy, head here.

WHAT IS THE DAILY NEWS?

The Daily News is a very simplified version of a journal. With help, students record one or two sentences about their day in a format that makes it easy to be referenced time and time again in the future.

WHY IS THE DAILY NEWS EFFECTIVE AS A LITERACY ACTIVITY?

The Daily News is an effective LITERACY ACTIVITY for several reasons:

While writing the Daily News, students work on their writing, spelling and penmanship skills.
In order to write the Daily News, students need to recall details and facts from their days.
Doing the Daily News challenges students to put their day-to-day experiences into words.
Students can be challenged to find new words to describe frequently occurring words.
Students can use past entries to help with accurate spelling on current/future writing work.

WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM THE DAILY NEWS?

Non-readers/writers, early literacy learners and even independent workers can benefit from this literacy activity. Everybody benefits from working on the difficult task of recall, the important experience of expression, the value of new vocabulary, etc. But, non-readers/writers can really benefit from these experiences with an adult because it allows them to express their thoughts on paper with assistance in a simple and meaningful way. And then being able to access those entries in the days, months, years to come becomes an invaluable resource … not to mention, memory-maker!

HOW SIMPLE IS IT TO DO THE DAILY NEWS?

The Daily News can be a very simple daily activity, though there are certainly ways to make it more elaborate. With the free PRINTABLE, you will find four options for different levels of writers.

All you need to do is choose the option you think will work best with your student and print it out! Then follow the directions found below to get started on recording the Daily News!

Expert tip: In order to keep your students from using the same words over and over again in their entries, provide them with a list of replacement words or, for older students, give them access to a thesaurus. While part of the goal of this activity is to practice writing, so ANY writing is helpful, we also want to encourage use of new words!

CAN THE DAILY NEWS BE MODIFIED?

Absolutely! It can be modified in several ways and for several reasons. If you have a pre-writer, you can write what he/she dictates for you and he/she can follow up with a simple picture.

Or, if you have a struggling writer who needs extra practice, he/she could dictate to you and then copy your writing onto their page.

An older student could do make their entries in a personal journal or directly on the family calendar in the kitchen.

If you have multiple kids working on this activity, you could transcribe all of their news onto a giant posterboard in a color-coded fashion. Or they could practice democracy by discussing various individual suggestions and then coming to a consensus on what the Daily News will be.

This literacy activity can take multiple forms, but whichever form you use, be sure it is effective for your learners.

Expert Tip: Save all of the pages, calendars or poster boards you use over the school year and transform them into some sort of word document that can be easily accessed by your student for future writing projects. They can serve as wonderful memory-joggers, writing-inspiration and more. Plus, they make the perfect keepsake for the year!