Reading NonFiction

Teachers from around Delaware learned more about strategies to help students read Nonfiction material in a way that engages and excites. 

Here's a quote from the authors Beers and Probst:

“When students recognize that nonfiction ought to challenge us, ought to slow us down and make us think, then they’re more likely to become close readers.” That means we need to help them question texts, authors, and, ultimately, their own thinking. No matter the content area, with Reading Nonfiction’s classroom-tested suggestions, you’ll lead kids toward skillful and responsible disciplinary literacy.

Picking up where their smash hit Notice & Note left off, Kylene Beers and Bob Probst write: “Fiction invites us into the writer’s imagined world; nonfiction intrudes into ours and purports to tell us something about it.” This crucial difference increases the responsibility of the nonfiction reader, so Kylene and Bob have developed interlocking scaffolds that every student can use to go beyond a superficial reading:

• 3 essential questions that set students up for closer, more attentive readings of nonfiction texts
• 5 Notice & Note nonfiction signposts that cue kids to apply the skills and processes that sophisticated readers use instinctively
• 7 proven strategies readers can use to clear up confusions when the text gets tough.

We all know the value of helping students define nonfiction and understand its text structures. Reading Nonfiction goes the next crucial step—helping kids challenge the claims of nonfiction authors, be challenged by them, and skillfully and rigorously make up their mind about purported truths.