Newpaper are very useful instrument in the classroom for improving reading skills and expanding student's knowledge of current affairs. Newspaper not only help the student in reading skills but also in writing, grammar, vocabulary, and speaking skills. Given below are some activities for finding reading comprehension from newspapers.
1. Guess The Article.
Select an interesting article from the newspaper which involves an exciting story. Choose some important key words and write them on the board. Students should further divide their team in 3-4 groups to come up with a story using keys words. When groups of student are finished to build up a new story, read out and tell them the original article.Also let the students to read loudly their own version, this can create a new reading article.
2. Newspaper Lies.
A short item of news should be selected by the students and change some of the details while summarising it to a Team/Partner. The Team/Partner should try to guess the facts which are true and have been changed.
3. Newspaper Valuable Hunt
A bundle of old newspapers are needed to distribute among team of 3-4 students for this activity. Note down a List of Articles/Words/Pictures which students had to find. Ask students to cut their 'Treasures' and paste them with appropriate word in the list. The list which can be possible:
- A job Advert
- Some Good and Bad news
- Weather Forecast
- News about stars
- Name of a Nation
- Your Favourite News Item
- famous Politician
4. Wall Quiz
Select a newspaper articles and asked student to write down the questions based on it. Distribute the quiz among the teams of the students. Pin up the articles of the newspaper around the room and tell them to find the answer while walking around the room.
5. Guess Headlines
You should cut the various headlines of the newspaper and remove interesting word from each headline(like: Missing Person found in________). Glue that incomplete headlines on a piece of the paper and distribute among team of students. Tell each student to come up with two possible answer for all headlines. All the responses should be collected and involve every student by voting for most original answer for each headlines.
6. Gossip.
This is a easy term for helping the students to summarise articles. For this activity students should read the articles involving scandal about famous people. Students should teach useful terms for gossiping, e.g. Did you know that..?, Have you heard about...?, Guess what?. Student should appropriate motion and tone. Ask students to select the articles of their choice by marking important parts of of the it and have informal chatting with their friends. This could be very useful for the students for expression responding like: Are you Joking?, How did it happen?.
7. News Programmes
This programme is great for both reading and speaking practice. Build up a small team of students and hand them over two latest newspapers. Ask them to work together to create a new programme, including the headlines, special reports, interview, the weather forecast, perhaps some footage from story. Every student in the team should be involved and produce a programme base on news items from the newspapers.
