The Teaching Nomad
  • Home
  • Hire Me
    • Advocacy
    • Professional Development
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Introducing parts of non-fiction

7/24/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of the things I love most about the new Common Core standards is its focus on non-fiction texts. Don't get me wrong. I love teaching great fiction, but I know that my students will probably need better non-fiction skills to survive college and in the workplace. Part of teaching non-fiction is introducing students to the different parts of non-fiction books, so they can gain information in an efficient manner. 

One way I have been teaching this over the past few years is by relating the parts of non-fiction to the parts of the body. 

First, I have students grab a big piece of paper. They find a partner to trace them on the paper. I don't tell them anything else and ask them to put it away to build their anticipation. Next, we do a KWL type activity where I ask students to tell me what they think they know about non-fiction. These two parts are it for Day 1. Over the course of a week, I begin to introduce the parts of the non-fiction and we put them on our "bodies". I start with the beginning of a book and discuss that each book has a title, author/illustrator, and title page. These are all things that get put on the head. On the neck goes the Table of Contents because it is the gateway to the rest of your body (book). Next we skip down to the feet and learn about the glossary and index. These come at the end of books and help support our body (book). Finally, we begin to cover all that makes up the "meat" of the book on the main body including chapter headings, keywords, maps, drawings, photographs, charts, diagrams, labels, etc. 

I think the multi-sensory component of drawing and visualizing each part really helps give meaning to students. Every time I have taught non-fiction parts this way all of my students have scored a 100% on their assessments, so I'd highly recommend it to other teachers. 


P.S. - Shout out to Lori Desautels, my student teaching advisor, for inspiring me to try this idea my very first year of teaching. It's been a staple activity ever since. I'd highly recommend checking out Lori's website called How May I Serve You. It has great insights for teachers. 

0 Comments

Teaching inferencing

3/17/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
This week my 3rd grade special education students and I have been practicing the skill of inferencing. We used the book Erandi’s Braids as our anchor text, and I created this anchor chart to go along with the book. I found this book to be an engaging one for teaching inferencing. Students wrote their inferences on post-it-notes and got to put them up on the chart.

Prior to reading Erandi’s Braids together, we played a game to introduce the skill of inferencing by looking through my backpack and making inferences about why I have particular things in my backpack. I found this picture on Pinterest that inspired me.
Picture
I also found some great worksheets online to reinforce the skill through mini-passages. These worked nicely as quick assessments to check for understanding. You can check them out here:

http://yasecondgrade.wikispaces.com/file/view/MakingInferencesSheet1.pdf

http://yasecondgrade.wikispaces.com/file/view/MakingInferencesSheet2.pdf

http://www.k12reader.com/subject/inference/

You can also check out my Pinterest board on inferencing for more inspiration: http://www.pinterest.com/kissinger86/inferencing/
0 Comments

      Sign Up for Weekly Classroom Ideas

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    February 2017
    June 2016
    May 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    2nd Grade
    3rd Grade
    4th Grade
    Advice
    Anchor Chart
    Assessment
    Erandi's Braids
    Fundations
    Games
    Guided Reading
    Inferencing
    Mexico
    Multicultural Text
    Multisensory
    Nonfiction
    Patch Adams
    Reader's Theater
    Reading Comprehension
    Reading Fluency
    Reading Workshop
    Relationships
    Robin Williams
    Special Education
    Teaching Abroad
    Tier 3
    Tpt
    Wilson

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly