The Non-Fiction Connection- Chapter 8

Just a quick note before we start talking about today's chapter: Please remember to cite the source of any freebies/products you create as part of our book study of Guiding Readers: Making the Most of the 18 Minute Lesson by Lori Jamison Rog. This should be done on the product as well as your blog. This is an important step in order to give credit to the original author and to set an example for our students in what we expect when they are completing a research assignment. Thanks.

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I think that this chapter is going to be one of the most popular. Most people are comfortable teaching with fiction but still shy away from non-fiction, especially in a guided reading setting. As someone who taught the upper grades, a lot of my student's reading came in the form of non-fiction once they reached Grade 7 or 8 so it was an essential skill that many students were lacking. 

Chapter 8 Study Notes


We'd love to hear your ideas!!


My thoughts:


Non-fiction text is one of my favourite things to teach! It grabs the attention of so many readers and allows them to learn new things that they are interested in. It always amazes me how many parents...and teachers...don't consider "it" to be reading unless "it" is a novel. My father is a wonderful example. I have never seen him gold, let alone read, a novel in my entire life. However, he reads about 5 newspapers everyday and countless other business and trades magazines and papers. If that's not reading then I don't know what is!!


I do agree with Lori that it is important to recognize that non-fiction text comes with it's own challenges and supports that are very different than fictional texts. Lori breaks down these ideas very clearly in Chapter 8 and makes it easy for someone who is new to teaching non-fiction to understand and gather ideas for lessons. 


I love the ideas that Lori has shared for guided reading lessons and I have used a lot of these lessons (or similar) in my class before. I believe that non-fiction guided reading has a place in our social studies and science classrooms which would actually give our students a double-dose of reading instruction during the day. Plus, it would model for our students that reading isn't just something that we do in Language Arts class but that happens in other subjects as well. How fun would a guided math lesson be structured like a guided reading lesson using a non-fiction text heavy on numbers, graphs, and data! Go integration!