How it works

Kidsnews.com.au is a ready-to go literacy resource for teachers using current daily news stories for students in the classroom.

The content is written into educational stories in child appropriate language and filtered/censored to remove any inappropriate content or imagery. The site does not link to any outside news sources or sites, therefore pupils can use it safely in an unsupervised environment or for independent learning.

Kids News is suitable for children from Grade 3 to Year 8, although teachers tell us it is being used with some students above and below this range.

The Articles

Three new articles are added to kidsnews.com.au each school day.
All new content is featured at the top of the homepage. The articles are divided into two main categories which have been tested as most popular with students:

  1. News — covering current affairs, key curriculum topics, interesting stories about people, animals and things
  2. Sport — Australian and international sports events and people.
  3. News stories are also sub-categorised into Key Topics which include:

 

Each article, which can be viewed in digital format or printed, includes:

  • A headline, lead image and text.
  • Multiple secondary images help tell the story visually and sometimes articles contain picture galleries.
  • We have included an audio file (using SoundCloud) so students can listen to the text as they read and assist with comprehension.
  • Each story contains a Glossary of terms and words that students may be unfamiliar with.
  • Video is included where possible.
  • A feedback comments box is featured at the base of the article and children are encouraged to write their thoughts on the news stories. These comments are moderated by Kids News and comments posted on the stories. Comments that include a student’s surname will not be published. Encourage students to write comments that contribute to the views of the article

Reading level of articles

A traffic light system to help teachers direct students to appropriate content depending on their comprehension levels.

  • Green– Simple to medium vocab, story content easily understood, accessible to all readers (especially with audio option)
  • Orange– medium level of vocabulary, story content a little more complex but still able to be read and understood at middle to senior primary level (audio option and glossary to assist)
  • Red – contains complex vocabulary and content that is of a higher level, suited to more able readers, requires teacher scaffolding for less capable readers.

Classroom Activities

Kids News provides 3 classroom activities per news article. These are written by teachers for teachers and are linked directly to the Australian curriculum.

The activities vary each day and are specific to the article. Each activity also includes an extension for higher students. The types of activities include:

  • Written projects for literacy, comprehension and storytelling.
  • Art projects
  • Geography
  • Speech writing
  • Persuasive text
  • Maths etc.

There are also daily VCOP (vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation) activities on each article.

Everyday Activities

Under Everyday Activities, teachers can find secondary everyday classroom activities that can be used for ALL Kids News news article. These are:

  • Harness a Headline
  • The 5 Ws
  • Grammar, Go! Focus on adjectives, punctuation etc.
  • Fact v opinion
  • Read to remember. Memory activity.

Archive

We have a rich collection of previously published stories filtered under each category and colour coding.
You can find the colour coding in the navigation bar.
You can search for curriculum based content under KEY TOPICS.

Or you can search using the Search Bar for any key words or topics.

Kids News Newsletter

Teachers who sign up receive an email at 8pm alerting them to the latest Kids News headlines for the following day.

The newsletter allows teachers to plan and prepare lessons ahead of time for the next morning.

Sign up for the newsletter on the homepage where you see SIGN UP FREE