Study: NIE Really Improves Writing Skills

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Study: NIE really improves writing skills

Reading newspapers improves student writing skills, a new academic study demonstrates.

Journalists and educators have long believed that young newspaper readers are also better writers.

Now they have some actual proof: an inch-thick report by two New York University professors of their yearlong study of the gap in writing and reading skills between middle-school children who read New York Newsday in the classroom and those who did not.

"The results indicate that students who participated in newspaper activities on a regular basis scored significantly higher on writing samples than students who did not participate in the ewspaper project," write Lenore H. Ringler and Carole S. Rhodes, professors at NYU's School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions.

In addition to demonstrating the link between newspaper reading and writing, …