What a busy time it is in our classroom! It is hard to believe we soon will be entering our third unit in reading. We have read and enjoyed an extensive unit on nonfiction. The unit began with expository nonfiction, which is mainly facts and information and highlighted with many text features such as diagrams, maps, and photographs with captions. We've had several lessons on 'reading around' an unknown word to figure out the meaning. We found that nonfiction authors uses context clue words such as: is, or, called etc to aid the reader. Other times there are clues such as synonyms, antonyms or examples that help guide us to the unknown word's meaning. We focused on writing the main idea and details, as well as using this structure to write a summary.
The unit finished up with a focus on narrative nonfiction, which featured biographies. We took a look at several individuals such as children's book illustrator, Ezra Jack Keats and writer, speaker, and activist, Helen Keller. We learned in order to read a biography well, we need to pay attention to the life story of the subject, but also to gain facts and information about the time period the person lived in, and to take note of the way the subject led his/her life. We also found that very often the life lessons the subject learns are lesson for anyone to learn, including the reader!
Since are close to completing the nonfiction reading and students have gained skills in this area, I'd like to take the time to mention two fantastic website for the whole family. The activities on these websites would support the learning that we have done in class. Don't worry too much about reading levels just choose a topic of interest to all of you and Enjoy!
Non-fiction reading that Kids Love: The following article discusses areas of the newspaper that are appropriate and enjoyable for kids to read. The article is written by Scholastic especially for parents.
Reading Adventure Packs for Families: Reading rockets is a website for teachers, students and parents. It has lots of information about many different aspects in reading. I will link you to this site again and again in the future. It is an awesome resource that I use in class as well. This link will take you to a page that has Adventure packs of books specifically designs for parent and children to investigate together. The creators have paired excellent fiction stories with logical nonfiction topics. For example, the outstanding author, Patricia Polocco has a book called, The Bee Tree which has a theme of maintaining stamina to learn to do something worthwhile and then enjoying the rewards. This has been paired with a nonfiction book, The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci. There is a free PDF that can be downloaded which provides questions and activities for you and your children to further explore the topics. Either book on its own would have great value, together they will create a wonderful learning experience for you and your child that will be treasured.
Keep these ideas in mind as the colder months approach and there is more indoor time to be spent together.
Finally, I am attaching a link so that you will have a small selection of before, during and after reading activities for you to discuss as your child reads nonfiction books at home.
Nonfiction questions 1- Just nonfiction
Nonfiction questions 2 - Fiction and Nonfiction
How to Ask Questions to Check Comprehension - Blog article
I hope these are helpful tools for you and your family,
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