DOGO News is a good news website for students. It offers kids friendly news stories covering current events in the world. Each article in DOGO News comes with a number of interesting features to help kids and students develop their reading comprehension, vocabulary, listening, and critical thinking skills.
As is the case with Newsela, DOGO News offers this interesting feature called Reading Level which allows you to easily adjust the reading level of the news article. You can either keep the article in its original format or click on ‘Simplified’ to generate a less difficult version that adapts to your kids reading level. Reading Level is a premium feature.
DOGO News offers a unique feature that allows you to search for news articles by word count. For instance, you can filter your search by articles that are written in up to 200 words , 200–400 words, 400-600 words, and so on. You can also search for news articles by category. Major categories included are Current Events, Science, Social Studies, Civic, World, Environment, Fun, Video, and Sports.
The vocabulary game (crossword) that accompanies news articles in DOGO News allows students to practice and improve their grasp of the key lexical terms they learned while reading the news. To play the crossword, students are provided with a list of words which they need to find in the grid of jumbled letters. They simply click on the first letter of the word and drag the cursor to the last letter. If the word is correct it will be crossed from the list. Vocabulary game is available for free
Cite Article is another good feature that comes with news articles in DOGO News. With a single click students can generate citations in three main formats: MAL, APA, and Chicago. They can copy and use the citation anywhere they want. Other interesting features provided by DOGO News include the ability to add articles to list of favorites, interact with fellow readers by sharing comments on articles, share articles directly to Google Classroom, and many more.
DOGO News Workbooks
Articles in DOGO News come with downloadable workbooks that are accessible to members. Workbooks are available in both English and Spanish and they contain the following elements: full news article, close reading quiz, vocabulary in context, reading comprehension, parts of speech quiz, and critical thinking challenge. You can search for workbooks by subject (e.g., science, social studies, civics, world, culture, technology, etc). Workbooks are available in PDF format and cost $10.
DOGO Books
DOGO Books is where you can access kids book reviews and recommendations. You can search for books by title, author or ISBN. You can also browse book catalogs to see featured book reviews and recommendations and connect with a large reading community. DOGO Books also includes a section for book quizzes, Nat Geo Kids Club, book series, and freebies.
DOGO Movies
DOGO Movies features reviews and recommendations of a wide variety of kids movies. You can use the search box to search for kids movies, You can also use the right hand-side bar to view popular kids movies (by week, month, or year). When you find the movie you are interested in click to review its review, watch its trailer if available, and scroll down to comments section to see people’s feedback.
Is DOGO News free?
Unfortunately, most of the interesting features that improve kids literacy and reading comprehension are only for premium subscribers. DOGO News offers different subscription plans. For instance, there is the DOGOnews PRO Teachers plan which costs $4.00 per student per year and requires a minimum of 20 students. DOGO News does offer a 7 days free trial that allows you to access materials on the site. You can cancel the trial period before it ends to avoid getting charged.
