Pacing and Implementation Guide

Scholastic News is a ready-to-go resource designed to meet a variety of teaching needs. Many teachers use the magazine to help their students build informational-text-reading skills. Others use the print and digital resources to teach current events and build core knowledge in their science and social studies curricula.

Teachers also vary the ways they implement the magazine in their classrooms. They may use it to spark a whole-group discussion or as part of their small-group instruction. Some teachers simply assign the print and digital features for independent reading and homework. To help you make the most of all the great resources Scholastic News offers, we’ve developed this pacing guide. It features implementation suggestions and curriculum connections you need to plan Scholastic News lessons effectively and efficiently.

Our suggested implementation is to complete one issue over the course of a week, for a total of 20 weeks. An issue may be completed in 2 to 3 instructional sessions ranging from 30 to 35 minutes each; see sample below.

If you don’t have time to use Scholastic News for more than one period per week, here are a few other options for how best to use the magazine.

Assessment Opportunities: Students can read the rest of the issue at home and complete the page 8 comprehension activities. Assessments include the 10-question multiple-choice quiz (called Be a Quiz Whiz!) that is available in the digital edition, or any of the online Skill Builders. You can use data from these assessments to create skills-based instructional groups.

Set up a Scholastic News station with student issues, a computer or tablet, and copies of the online Skill Builders. Here are activities students can complete independently or in partnerships:

• Have the entire issue read aloud using the Text-to-Speech feature. (This is a terrific tool for students struggling with fluency or for multilingual learners.)
• Watch informational videos related to the cover story and other articles.
• Complete Skill Builders related to the cover story and other articles.
• Complete the close-reading questions included in the Digital Resource Guide.
• Play the Know the News game.
• Complete the 10-question Be a Quiz Whiz! Skill Builder.
• Explore the archives to find more on-level articles, accompanying games, videos, and quizzes.

Scholastic News Supports Your ELA Instruction

A Digital Resource Guide accompanies each issue of Scholastic News. It includes pre-reading activities, close-reading questions, differentiation and extension activities, content-area connections, and standards correlations. Here are some of the skills we often cover in the Digital Resource Guide:

• Citing text evidence and making inferences
• Determining main idea and identifying key details
• Summarizing
• Describing cause/effect relationships and sequencing events
• Using context clues and acquiring domain-specific vocabulary
• Using text features, such as photos and maps
• Describing connections between sentences or paragraphs
• Comparing two texts on one topic

Additionally, Scholastic News articles are instrumental for many teachers in building informational reading skills. Every issue features on-level nonfiction that gives your students ample practice reading the types of informational texts that are essential for success on tests and in higher grades.

Scholastic News Supports Your Writing Instruction

The articles in Scholastic News make excellent anchor texts to teach informational writing. You might use the articles in the following ways:

• Discuss text structure (e.g., problem/solution, cause/effect, sequence).
• Compare different ways to write introductions and conclusions.
• Highlight linking words (e.g., also, another, but).
• Analyze how authors develop topics with facts, definitions, details, and text features.

The Skill Builders also provide opportunities for students to practice their writing skills. Most require students to write responses to text-based questions. Some focus on specific editing skills, such as grammar and punctuation. Others help students plan essays or longer narrative pieces.

Scholastic News Supports Your Science and Social Studies Instruction

Many of the topics you teach in your science and social studies lessons come to life in Scholastic News. You teach students about the solar system; we give you the latest news on Mars. You discuss cultures and communities; we give you current events and maps from all over the world. With every issue, we pick news that we know will help you meet your most important teaching goals!