Kid-Friendly News Sites

News and media-literacy is a very important skill, and as children are exposed to news and journalism earlier than ever, it’s important to have an intentional approach in this area. Unfortunately, news today can be very distressing, and many news outlets contain headlines and pictures that are inappropriate for kids. The good news is there are kid-friendly media outlets that consist of age-appropriate content, and in some cases, stories even written by young reporters.

As with many news outlets, the ones listed below each seem to have a particular ideological or political slant, so take some time to assess these kid-friendly news outlets to find the best for your worldview and family!

Time for Kids
This project of Time Magazine is a weekly publication geared toward elementary students. Time for Kids focuses on age-appropriate stories kids are excited about, information just for kids that explains the world around them, and instructional materials aligned to state standards.

NBC Learn
This is a fantastic resource for topical educational videos. As the educational wing of NBC Universal, Learn has won awards for its video series on subjects like chemistry, the science of football, and nanotechnology. The videos are generally 6 minutes or less, so they can serve as supplemental tools for subjects that are difficult for students to conceptualize without taking up too much learning time. Additionally, many of their archived news stories and videos are correlated to state and higher ed standards.

TweenTribune (Smithsonian)
This online publication has grade level filters so the stories can be more targeted towards a specific age range. Focusing primarily on STEM topics, articles also are tagged by Lexile levels, so articles are both interesting and attainable for readers.

Newsforkids.net
News For Kids is exactly what its name implies. Unlike the aforementioned news sources, News For Kids is similar to major news networks in regard to content and doesn’t have an educational or STEM bent. However, a few things distinguish it from a traditional news sources. First, each article tries to be self-contained to not assume any background knowledge on a subject. Second, articles are written at an age-appropriate reading level.