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What is Newspapers in Education (NIE)?

For over 30 years, the Bangor Daily News has partnered with area businesses and individuals to provide educational services and resources to educators throughout our 8-county service area. The Newspapers in Education program, provided by newspapers to educational institutions worldwide, encourages using the newspaper in the classroom as a supplemental teaching tool to help students develop essential academic and life skills. Newspapers are an authentic resource for teaching concepts and skills in all subject areas and at all grade levels. Unlike any other medium of communication, the newspaper is a daily almanac, vocabulary bonanza, encyclopedia of current events, community record, consumer guide and more all rolled into one.

How does it work?

Of course the newspaper is a great source for current events but it is so much more!

• Students’ reading comprehension and writing skills are enhanced with regular use of the newspaper in the classroom. It is chock full of capital letters, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, homonyms, synonyms and more!
• Students have the opportunity see examples of and determine the difference between fact and opinion.
• Imagine motivating students to learn math skills with the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots by teaching mean, median and mode, probability, fractions, decimals and percentages using the scores and statistics on the sports pages.
• Connect charting and graphing to real life by using the Television schedule or weather page. These ideas and many more are available in the curriculum and activity guides provided by Newspapers in Education.

Research Shows Results!

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been looking into the connection between utilizing newspapers through NIE programs and student achievement. The group looked at student performance in hundreds of schools in nine states. In general, students in schools with at least some participation in NIE programs did 10% better on standardized test than students at schools with no NIE participation. The most significant increase in student performance was seen at the middle school level. In particular, middle school students in minority and lower-income schools scored 30% higher than their counterparts (Source: Measuring Success, NAA 2004).

Do Your Part...

Connect your students or local youth with real world learning experiences by using the Bangor Daily News as a "living textbook" in the classroom.

        -Sponsor a classroom or school.
        -Donate your newspapers to NIE when you go on vacation.
        -Enroll your classroom in the NIE program.

For updates and NIE related information and future communications, join our email group by contacting NIE.