News for Kids – For the 21st Century Schools
Just like the famous line, ‘water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink’, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, we can find news all around us. There are blogs, newspapers, television channels, etc. but not a single news source is specially designed for children.
My search for a ready-to-go source of real news to keep my child aware of current happenings led me to Newsahoot. Newsahoot is a newly launched platform for kids that keeps my child updated and keeps her away from biased and aggressive media output.
Newsahoot’s content is formulated in a way that it can be easily integrated as part of the regular school curriculum. One of its best features is that they only publish one article a day. This means that teachers can easily take out five minutes a day to discuss the previous day’s article. This way conscious schools and teachers can truly ensure their children remain ahead of the crowd.
What is Newsahoot?
Newsahoot is an e-learning platform that provides real news for kids above eight years of age in a manner they understand, appreciate, and retain. Newsahoot posts one story per day in each of the following six categories: world, India, science and technology, health, environment, and social sciences.
Based on age and language proficiency, children can choose between three difficulty levels. Each article is written in its simplest form before being expanded upon with content appropriate for each level. Each article also comes with its own set of word meanings to expand kids’ vocabulary. Quick revision points at the end of each article are a cherry on top! Each time a new story is published children and parents receive WhatsApp notifications.
Anmol Malhotra, the founder of Newsahoot and a former corporate lawyer, believes in making news accessible to children. He feels that youngsters should also be informed of what is happening in the world without feeling overburdened by objectionable news content.
How is Newsahoot different from kids’ newspapers?
Many schools partner with a kids’ newspaper service. But that may not necessarily be the best approach to take. How much do the kids benefit from such a service? Do children even read these newspapers?
A traditional kids’ newspaper is designed to mimic the layout and presentation of an adult newspaper. Most of these papers are biweekly/ fortnightly and are 10-15 pages long. Their content is also designed keeping children in mind.
However, these papers have taken the approach to keep children away from real-world current affairs. The focus is on skill building than intellect building. Ultimately, they remain ignorant of what is happening in the country and even the world. There is also no way to ensure whether children are reading any content or not.
The Newsahoot team has perfectly identified this gap. They are focused on creating quality content that guarantees school-going children acquire general knowledge, improve their vocabulary and language abilities, and are aware of their surroundings. Also, unlike kids’ newspapers, Newsahoot can help inculcate a daily reading habit. That’s because of Newsahoot’s unique one-article daily approach.
How can schools benefit from Newsahoot?
The obvious benefit of getting Newsahoot for your school is that children will demonstrably become smarter and more confident! But that’s not where the benefits for schools end.
Newsahoot also provides features like co-branded WhatsApp messages and emails to students and parents. This ensures that everyone is aware that sharing news specifically for students is an initiative of the school. Newsahoot can also provide analytics of which child has read which article.
Newsahoot can also help schools become more compliant with the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). It is aligned with embracing digital pedagogy through online means, focusing on collaborative and holistic learning than rote learning, shifting to regular and formative discussions, etc.
Schools can reach out to Newsahoot directly at contact@newsahoot.com for a free trial for their students.
