How To Use

How to Use

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 Year 3 to Year 8, although teachers tell us it is used by some students above and below this range.

The articles

A minimum of two 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:

News – covering current affairs, key curriculum topics, interesting stories about people, animals and things

Sport – Australian and international sports events and people.

News stories are also sub-categorised into Key Topics which include:

  • Science & Tech
  • Space
  • Society & Culture
  • Animals
  • Environment
  • Explainers
  • Arts
  • History
  • Health
  • Money
  • Just for Fun
  • Money
  • Just For Fun
  • Indigenous News

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

  • A headline, lead image and text.
  • Multiple secondary images to help tell the story visually; some articles contain picture galleries.
  • An audio file to assist comprehension, so that students can listen to the text as they read.
  • A glossary of terms, defining words in the story that students may be unfamiliar with.
  • A reader poll, so students can interact with peers by taking a position and getting an instant snapshot of poll results.
  • Supporting video where possible and appropriate.

Reading level of articles

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

  • Green – using simple to medium vocabulary, the story content is easily understood and accessible to all readers (especially with audio option)
  • Orange – displaying a medium level of vocabulary, the story content a little more complex but can be read and understood at middle to senior primary level (supported by audio and glossary assistance)
  • Red – containing complex vocabulary and content that is of a higher level thematically, these stories are best suited to more able, early high school readers, and may require teacher scaffolding for less confident readers.

    • Classroom activities

    Kids News provides two 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.


    VCOP activities

    Each story also includes a literacy activity built around vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation. These VCOP activities are provided by education development company Andrell Education.

    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 3pm on Sundays alerting them to some of the Kids News content that will be featured in the coming week.

    The newsletter allows teachers to plan and prepare lessons for the week ahead.

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