Text Features vs. Text Structures
As we are becoming more familiar with the new non-fiction reading units, there has been a clear focus defined between text features and text structures.
K-2 non-fiction units continue to focus on using text features (titles, captions, bolded words, etc) to read and understand texts. In 3rd grade this focus begins to shift to identifying/understanding text structures (problem/solution, compare/contrast, chronological, etc) as a way of understanding "how a text will go" to help a reader know how to organize note taking/thinking. A focus on text structures continues to be built upon in 4th and 5th grade.
Mary Lee Hahn, 5th grade teacher in Dublin, OH shared a very helpful blog post with mentor texts for the different structures. While her examples are for 5th grade, the examples are helpful for teachers at ALL grade levels looking to deepen their understanding of the differences between these structures. Click here to read her post.
Anchor Charts to Support NF Reading & Writing
ChartChums is a great resource for all things anchor charts as many of you already know. This past post offers some good reminders for making and using charts that support nonfiction reading. Click here to read the post.
Teaching NF with Passion
Primary teacher and book blogger, Carrie Gelson, wrote a set of three posts filled with ideas for using nonfiction in the classroom. Along with her own passion for using non-fiction picture books, her posts include a slew of fantastic titles that you might want to add to your own collections. Click here to read her first post in a three part series. Links to her other posts are included.
Infusing Informational Text Across the Day
Using ideas from the Writing Units of Study to enhance the sessions in the Reading Units of Study serve to strengthen the links between the two. Kathleen Neagle Sokolowsky, contributor at Two Writing Teachers shared some great ideas for using informational texts throughout the day in TWT recent blog series on NonFiction. Click here to read her post.
Classroom Displays for Nonfiction Learning from Choice Literacy
Thinking about how we make space in our classrooms for students to share their learning becomes increasingly important when we are thinking about all they are learning during NF reading and writing units. Andrea Smith, contributor to Choice Literacy, shares some ideas for making the most of classroom space. Click here to find out more.
A Non-Fiction Triumvirate
Did you feel that need to look triumvirate up? I did!
triumvirate (n.): an association or group of three
Author Melissa Stewart has provide a great overview (with mentor text suggestions) of non-fiction categories, writing styles, and text structures that are helpful not just for sharing with student but also for helping you build your own background knowledge around nonfiction text. Click here to read more.
While I love to read, and do a lot of it, I most definitely have a gap in the nonfiction titles I read. Most of the nonfiction reading I do is professional books. As I work to fill that "gap" in my own reading diet, I'm leaning heavily on literacy friends who are much more well read. Alyson Beecher, Literacy Coach in Pasadena, CA shares some great tips for teachers are who looking to expand their own nonfiction reading. Click here to read Alyson's post.
Newsela Elementary
Newsela Elementary makes is easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a text level that just right for each reader. Not only can you find new articles every day, at five different reading levels, but Newsela also has an archive of over 1000 articles, organized by category and reading standards. You can project the articles for whole class reading or print them for small group work. This FREE website is a great resource for adding reading materials to your collection. To sign up, visit https://e.newsela.com/.
ThinkCERCA
Very similar to Newsela, ThinkCERCA has a library of leveled, authentic texts scaffolded at different reading levels. This site has two features that are very helpful. The first is an audio feature that will read the article aloud to students. The second feature is a built-in dictionary within each article that provides a pronunciation and definition of the highlighted word. To sign up for this FREE resource click here.
ReadWorks
ReadWorks has non-fiction and fiction texts on a variety of topics at various reading levels. Many of the texts include lesson ideas and teaching guides to help enhance the information included in the texts. As with Newsela and ThinkCerca, the database is easy to search and is completely FREE. Click here sign up.
Kindergarten
This is the first in a series of three nonfiction books perfect for young readers. This book looks at how animals sleep, through words illustrations. The other two books in this trilogy are Time to Eat and Time for a Bath. All three are fantastic additions to the classroom library.
Grade 1
Why did the chicken cross the road? To follow you home! Learn all about a not-so-basic bird in this delightful nonfiction picture book.
Celebrated author-illustrator Robin Page leads a step-by-step, question-and-answer-style journey through the world of chickens. Along the way you’ll explore different breeds, discover different types of coops, and learn everything there is to know about chicken reproduction and hatching.
Gorgeous, playful, and filled with facts, this engaging nonfiction picture book shines new light on a very familiar fowl!
Celebrated author-illustrator Robin Page leads a step-by-step, question-and-answer-style journey through the world of chickens. Along the way you’ll explore different breeds, discover different types of coops, and learn everything there is to know about chicken reproduction and hatching.
Gorgeous, playful, and filled with facts, this engaging nonfiction picture book shines new light on a very familiar fowl!
Grade 2
Drip. Sip. Pour me a cup. Water is water unless...it heats up.
Whirl. Swirl. Watch it curl by. Steam is steam unless...it cools high.
This spare, poetic picture book follows a group of kids as they move through all the different phases of the water cycle. From rain to fog to snow to mist, talented author Miranda Paul and the always remarkable Jason Chin (Redwoods, Coral Reefs, Island, Gravity) combine to create a beautiful and informative journey in this innovative nonfiction picture book that will leave you thirsty for more.
Whirl. Swirl. Watch it curl by. Steam is steam unless...it cools high.
This spare, poetic picture book follows a group of kids as they move through all the different phases of the water cycle. From rain to fog to snow to mist, talented author Miranda Paul and the always remarkable Jason Chin (Redwoods, Coral Reefs, Island, Gravity) combine to create a beautiful and informative journey in this innovative nonfiction picture book that will leave you thirsty for more.
Grade 3
In the latest eye-catching escape into the kingdom of Animalia, Steve Jenkins and Robin Page reveal the skills animals use to survive in the wild in an imaginative and humorous how-to format. With step-by-step instructions, readers learn about specific behaviors; how to catch thousands of fish like a humpback whale or how to sew up a nest like a tailorbird. This fascinating and fun illustrated nonfiction melds science, art, biology, and the environment together in a detailed and well-researched book about animals who live and survive in our world today.
Grade 4
Journey to the wave-battered coast of the Pacific Northwest to meet some of the engineers and scientists working to harness the punishing force of our oceans, one of the nature’s powerful and renewable energy sources. With an array of amazing devices that cling to the bottom of the sea floor and surf on the crests of waves, these explorers are using a combination of science, imagination, and innovation to try to capture wave energy in the hopes of someday powering our lives in a cleaner, more sustainable way.
Grade 5
With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It’s baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers—suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.
But most intriguing of all, octopuses—classed as mollusks, like clams—are remarkably intelligent with quirky personalities. This book, an inquiry into the mind of an intelligent invertebrate, is also a foray into our own unexplored planet. These thinking, feeling creatures can help readers experience and understand our world (and perhaps even life itself) in a new way.
But most intriguing of all, octopuses—classed as mollusks, like clams—are remarkably intelligent with quirky personalities. This book, an inquiry into the mind of an intelligent invertebrate, is also a foray into our own unexplored planet. These thinking, feeling creatures can help readers experience and understand our world (and perhaps even life itself) in a new way.
Susan Dee K-5 Literacy Strategist
Email: dees@rsu5.org
Location: Freeport, ME, United States
Phone: 207-865-4561
Twitter: @literacydocent