Customize Admin Sidebar Menu Items? Looking for a way to show Channel entries directly on the sidebar for content editors. So if someone has access to: 

DEFAULT STRUCTURE of Sidebar Menu


Entries ->


CHANNELS ->


News


News Item 1
News Item 2
News Item 3





PREFERRED STRUCTURE of Sidebar Menu


News


News Item 1
News Item 2



In other words, Content Editors don't need to see "Entries" and then "CHANNELS" to get to their section they update. When someone has permissions for a specific Section or Channel, it should be neatly accessible on the left side. 

In Craft, what is the correct approach to make this happen?
Craft does not offer this functionality natively. Luckily there's a few plugins out there that will help your users navigate around a bit easier:

In the CP Nav
https://github.com/engram-design/CPNav (This should accomplish your need)
https://github.com/picdorsey/craft-sidebarenhancer

In the Entries index
https://github.com/james1238/EntryTypeSources
https://github.com/engram-design/ExpandedSingles