Gaining Kid Readers: It's In the Cards

By: Mark Fitzgerald Lori Santarpio, education program manager for the Boston Herald's "Herald in Education" program, has a built-in focus group for new newspaper in education (NIE) materials: her two middle school-aged kids. She knew she had a hit on her hands when she brought home a deck of "It's News To Me! Newsflash!" cards from Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Newsline Publications Inc. "I wanted to see if it would fly with them, and they loved it," Santarpio says.

Herald in Education went on to order 500 decks, printed with the newspaper's brand. The card game is given to teachers as part of its NIE program. Santarpio reports, "I put the game offer in our newsletter in June, and I would say more than half of our teachers immediately sent in for it."

The card game was developed by Barbara S. Goldman, the NIE veteran who a decade ago created the "It's News To Me!" board game that within four years sold out of its 5,000-copy run. "It was time for something new," Goldman said in an interview during the Chicago International Toy & Game Fair, where she was marketing the cards for use well beyond NIE.

She's hoping, for instance, to convince hotels that buy newspapers in bulk for free distribution to guests to offer the cards, branded with their corporate logo, to the increasing number of children who accompany their parents even on business travel. Among the adult institutions already using the game are a hospital rehabilitation center and the Southeast State Correctional Facility in Vermont.

So far, the game has grown mostly by word of mouth on NIE listservs and by fans such as Diane Goold, NIE director at the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press. "Teachers just love them," she says. "I charge them $10 a set. It's the kind of game you can use when it's near the end of the week, and the kids are kind of rowdy." The cards are designed to be used either in groups or by an individual. "One of the good things is the questions are generic enough that you can use them in any classroom," Goold adds.

From the NIE professional's viewpoint, the cards have another attraction. "I don't have any reprint costs," Goold explains. "With some other materials, you buy it for $300 and then you have to pay to have it reprinted."

Game creator Goldman says she's proudest of one response to the cards from a notoriously tough audience for NIE: "I hear from teachers that boys like the card game, they like the competition. Plus, I've put in questions about sports." She hints that she's looking to target an even more antsy audience. "I have some ideas for pre-schoolers," she says.