Healthy NewsWorks partners with classroom teachers to deliver three school-based programs that develop student literacy skills and enhance health knowledge:
- Core Reporters (grades 3-8): a series of up to 24 lessons that develop students’ interviewing, writing, reporting, and research skills. Students create and publish school-based health newspapers and digital media on topics relevant to their peers and communities. Our 2022-23 theme is “Caring for Our Earth and Ourselves.” Students will report about and reflect on environmental issues and how kids can make a difference. They will also contribute to Healthy NewsWorks’ new print and e-magazine.
- Cub Reporters (grades K-3): a junior reporting program that includes three tracks: Hearty Kids (5 lessons on heart health), Super Snackers (5 lessons on nutrition), and Kind Kids (5 lessons on social/emotional skills). Classrooms may complete one, two, or all tracks. Each lesson helps students learn and practice reading, writing, research, and reporting skills. Reporters help write and illustrate a junior section for their school’s health newspaper.
- Special Lessons: offered to classrooms in schools that do not participate in the Core or Cub program. Lesson topics include writing about empathy, learning interviewing skills. and identifying reliable web-based sources.
In addition, Healthy NewsWorks has developed By Kids, For Kids (BKFK) as an online health news site written by and for children ages 5-14.