Fostering Non-Fiction Reading: My TL Journey

 

Denys Nevozhai dnevozhai, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons


As a TL, I want to instill a love of reading in my school community. Currently, I have been providing classrooms with a variety of fiction and non-fiction books to read during their units of inquiry. However, I realized that I have been focusing too much of my library lesson time on fiction. This led me to consider, how could I foster a love of reading of both fiction and non-fiction? And, how could I improve my skills and lessons to help my students navigate successfully through the information highways that they will travel as they get older?

First destination: How can I make non-fiction reading as popular as fiction reading in my school?

I am learning that in order to promote reading, you should not show favouritism towards fiction vs. non-fiction resources. One article that I found about this was written by Continental Press that discussed some of the reasons that students struggle with non-fiction reading and some ideas on how to encourage it instead. Their point about the Dewey Decimal system being difficult to navigate and that people first choose the internet to find the answers made me consider how I could change that attitude at my school.

I am inspired by the idea of pairing fiction books with different styles of non-fiction and adding in an explanation of the Dewey Decimal Classification category during my library lessons. A good resource that I found to help with some activity ideas with this type of book pairing was written by Stewart & Young. In addition this website has some great ideas for book pairings for younger students.

Kids association, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Second destination: Where can I find good non-fiction resources for children to share during lessons?

Making sure that the resources that the students have access to are high quality, I explored some resources to find award-winning non-fiction books for children:

Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction

Orbis Pictus Award for Oustanding Nonfiction for Children

AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books

Now that I have made non-fiction reading popular and students are finding books that they are interested in checking out of the LLC, how do I help to ensure that they understand what they are reading about?

Third destination: What strategies can I use to help guide non-fiction reading comprehension?

I was intrigued by Stead’s article about the power of non-fiction read-alouds with classes. I am looking forward to trying out his “Reading and Analyzing Nonfiction Strategy (R.A.N.)” (Stead 492). I agreed with his point that, “We need to infuse talk into the read-aloud and give our students time to reflect, wonder, and question” (Stead 492). I think that this strategy takes the traditional K-W-L charts to a new level of comprehension and curiosity.

I have used the Encyclopedia Britannica with students in Grade 2 to learn about animals/creatures that they were interested in learning more about. The students were able to navigate online and learn using the different reading levels, text to speech capabilities, videos and pictures. I wonder if the R.A.N. strategy (Stead 492) would work as well with online sources.

Another strategy is to use engaging non-fiction texts to “scavenger hunt” for text features. Using the video below would be a good start for a Grade 3-4 class.



For older students, I would use the following resources to help them finding credible sources online:

MediaSmarts

Ctrl-F: find the facts

Common Sense Media: News Literacy

Kids Friendly News Websites

I want my students to be curious and satisfy their curiosity using reliable resources. I hope that this information is useful for your non-fiction literacy journey as well.

P.S. I apologize for the long blog entry but I got really inspired as I did more research into the topic and learned a lot along the way.   

Works Cited

American Association for the Advancement of Science. “AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books.” AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 8 Feb. 2022, https://www.sbfprize.org/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

The Canadian Children's Book Centre. “Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction.” Canadian Children's Book Centre, The Canadian Children's Book Centre, 2021, https://bookcentre.ca/norma-fleck-award-for-canadian-childrens-non-fiction. Accessed 7 October 2022.

CIVIX. “Find the Facts — Digital Media Literacy.” CTRL-F, CIVIX, 2022, https://ctrl-f.ca/en/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Cool, Kathy. “The 5 Best Fiction and Nonfiction Book Pairings for Younger Students.” Staying Cool in the Library, Staying Cool in the Library - Hello You Designs, 9 August 2021, https://www.stayingcoolinthelibrary.us/the-5-best-fiction-and-nonfiction-book-pairings-for-younger-students/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. “Britannica Kids.” Britannica Kids, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2022, https://kids.britannica.com/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

English Language Arts. “Fun Nonfiction Reading Activities to Try with Students.” Continental Press, 18 December 2019, https://www.continentalpress.com/blog/fun-nonfiction-reading-activities/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Kharbach, Med. “Kids Friendly News Websites.” Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, Blogger, 15 April 2020, https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2020/12/kids-friendly-news-websites.html. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Kids Association. “Français : enfant en lecture.” Woman reading picture book to children. photograph, 22 Oct 2014. Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woman_reading_picture_book_to_children.jpg. Accessed 7 Oct 2022.

Lechuga, Maribel. “Orbis Pictus Award (Nonfiction for Children).” NCTE, NCTE, 2022, https://ncte.org/awards/orbis-pictus-award-nonfiction-for-children/. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Lerner Books. “5 Kinds of Nonfiction – Evaluate Your Collection.” The Lerner Blog, Lerner Publishing Group, 2022, https://lernerbooks.blog/2022/07/5-kinds-of-nonfiction-evaluate-your-collection.html. Accessed 7 October 2022.

LINKtivity Learning. “Nonfiction Text Features.” YouTube, YouTube Kids, 18 Jan. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF9dCJSw7vY&t=20s. Accessed 7 October 2022.

MediaSmarts. “Digital & Media Literacy | MediaSmarts.” MediaSmarts |, MediaSmarts, 2022, https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Nevozhai, Denys. An East Road Interchange, Shanghai, China. aerial photo. 9 June 2016. Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yan%27an_East_Road_Interchange,_Shanghai,_China_(Unsplash).jpg. Accessed 7 Oct 2022. photograph.

Shelley, Allison. “Everything You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship.” Common Sense Education, Common Sense Media, 2022, https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Stead, Tony. “Nurturing the Inquiring Mind Through the Nonfiction Read-Aloud.” Reading Teacher, vol. 67, no. 7, April 2014, pp. 488-95. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1254. Accessed 7 October 2022.

Stewart, Melissa, and Terrell A. Young. “Teaching the Key Traits of Expository Nonfiction With Children's Books.” Reading Teacher, vol. 72, no. 5, Mar. 2019, pp. 648-51. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1770. Accessed 7 Oct. 2022.


Comments

  1. ICTGuyOctober 11, 2022 at 6:52 PM

    Hi Nicole,

    I like that you are looking for ways to pair fiction and non-fiction. Making the connection that some things in fiction might be something that can be researched and connected to the "real world" will be great for students. I think you could probably make some kind of connection here with verifying information on the internet. That would be powerful given how confusing it can be to know what information to trust online.

    A resource that might also be of interest to you is Teach Kids News (https://teachingkidsnews.com/). This site is Canadian, and written to help teachers and kids make sense of current news. The site is for use with kids in Grades 2-8. The original collaboration on this site was between a teacher (Grade 3 I believe) in Ontario and a freelance journalist.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. Nicole McDaidOctober 15, 2022 at 4:35 PM

      Thanks for the tie-in to my other blog entries! Good reminder that there are also good books about the internet as well as Canadian resources to support digital literacy.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousOctober 12, 2022 at 10:48 AM

    Wow, wow, wow what an incredible compilation of resources, Nicole! Thank you for sharing all of these wonderful ideas. I am in the process of culling many outdates non-fiction resources and I am trying my best to replace them with good quality, readable and beautiful titles. A favourite author/illustrator that I have come across is Jenni Desmond (https://www.jennidesmond.com/) and her books are so entertaining, beautiful and they feel very up-to-date. It is my hope to revamp those shelves as much as I can in the coming years, and the resources you have shared will help so much in that process.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. Nicole McDaidOctober 15, 2022 at 4:37 PM

      Thanks for the feedback, Lauren. Also, the link to Jenni Desmond's books is appreciated! Her books are beautiful and will be great additions to our collection.

      Delete
  3. Ms. GatzkeOctober 12, 2022 at 11:15 AM

    I enjoyed reading your comprehensive post, with so many great resources! Pairing fiction and non-fiction is so powerful. From a very early stage, we can celebrate kids as inquiry learners. Our district has a Scholastic Bookflix subscription. It has lots of pairings in different subject areas, eg. 54 pairings under Animals and Nature, 72 under Family and Community.

    I hadn't browsed Britannica Kids - thank you for sharing! We use World Book Online, and our K-1's have a lot of fun with their Early Learning. They have other modules for bigger kids, too.

    Media literacy has been on my mind too. I found the same resource as Robert, above. Their book, Can You Believe It: How to Spot Fake News and Find the Facts, was a good read as well with some helpful resources at the end. Two years ago some of our district T-L's crafted student activities for digital literacy. There's one for Primary, and this one for Intermediate: https://surreyschoolsone.ca/students/student-activities/ninja-breakout/. It's a handy ready-to-go resource that's interactive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. Nicole McDaidOctober 15, 2022 at 4:38 PM

      Thanks for the idea of Scholastic Bookflix as I hadn't heard of it. I will definitely be checking out the book that you and Robert both mentioned.

      Delete
  4. D.McNeeOctober 15, 2022 at 9:54 AM

    This is a thoughtful and well-written post filled with excellent ideas on fostering a reading culture. You have left your reader with many good ideas and resources to consider.

    ReplyDelete

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