Before the days of computers, newsrooms literally had to cut and paste pages together. If a hot story came in or a large advertisement was sold at the last minute, editors needed to be able to make room in a hurry. Thus, the "inverted pyramid" style of newswriting was born, where the most important facts in a story appear in the first paragraph (called the lead, or lede by journalists), the next most important information appears in the second paragraph and so on.

This method enables readers to scan the opening paragraphs of several stories and get a summary of all the day's headlines. It also lets editors shorten stories by cutting off paragraphs near the bottom while still maintaining a coherent article. To demonstrate this style (and show kids how to get news in a hurry), try this activity:

Cut up front-page news articles (as opposed to feature articles--stories that could run at any time that are usually not tied to breaking news) into paragraphs. Then see who can reassemble their articles the quickest. Once your kids begin to catch on, cut up a whole front page into headlines and lede paragraphs and see who can match them back up the fastest.