Tips, Titles and Tools for Teachers
Instructional Resources for Nonfiction
April 3, 2015
Happy Reading!
Shelly
National Geographic in Reading Workshop
Using the links below, you can access the Teacher's Guide for each issue of National Geographic Explorer from September 2009 to the current issue!
Teacher's Guide for the Pioneer editions. This edition is connected to standards for grades 2-3.
Teacher's Guide for the Pathfinder editions. This edition is connected to standards for grades 4-5.
The Teacher's Guide includes links for videos and other resources for each article in the edition. The guide includes recommendations for using the article to: Activate Prior Knowledge, Target Vocabulary, Explore Reading, Explore Writing, Explore Language and Explore Science. I've found the instructional ideas, as well as the graphic organizers, valuable for using these articles with reading groups!
Of course you can connect the articles to your science units, but you can also use them to engage students in reading more informational text! These articles can enhance your instruction on text features, text structures, main idea, author's purpose and vocabulary!
NEWSELA
I LOVE that:
- you can change the reading level of each article to differentiate for your students.
- if you click on the search icon, you can search by your grade level, as well as Common Core standards! You can align the articles to your instruction with vocabulary, text structures, and author's purpose, just to name a few!
- if you highlight a line of text in an article, you can leave a note for your students.
I think you could use this site to:
- differentiate reading articles for your reading groups connected to learning goals.
- find articles related to your content area unit.
- find articles for students to respond to in their writer's notebook to practice opinion writing.
These are just a few possibilities that come to mind!
It looks like you can create a binder of articles, as well as set up a class and assign articles to your students. This quick start guide may help you start exploring how you can use this site in your reading workshop!
Wonderopolis
Wonderopolis is a wonderful site to use for your content studies. You can use the search bar to locate wonders connected to your units of study. You could also use the Wonder of the Day as a literacy station or as part of your writer's notebook options.
Here is a link to the Educator's Guide for using Wonderopolis. I love the idea of using Wonder Journals or incorporating an opportunity for your students to wonder in their writer's notebooks. You could also use the Wonder of the Day to launch a quick write in your writing workshop.
Mystery Science
Incorporating Nonfiction in your Reading Workshop
I also enjoyed this post on the Nerdy Book Club blog about using paired texts (fiction and nonfiction) for ecology. One of my favorite examples is paring the book The One and Only Ivan with the informational text, Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla. There are many great ways to enhance your fiction read alouds with an informational text to build background knowledge or engage your readers.
Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla
I Am Jackie Robinson
Check out this link to Brad Meltzer's site, "Ordinary People Change the World, which includes a video about the series.