A Shift

One shift in my teaching the last few years has been trying to read different types of text. In the past I had relied too heavily on fiction. I still love fiction and it is usually at the heart of what we do in my room, but now we read all types of texts.

One way that I have really been trying to incorporate nonfiction this year has been reading an article of the week. This idea comes from Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher says that this weekly article exposes students to 30-40 articles a year. This exposure will help students have a better understanding of the world. It will also add to their schema when they read other articles.

This year we have already read articles about buddy baseball, Dreadnoughtus, wild horses on the island of Corolla, North Carolina, orca whales at Sea World, and the buddy bench.

I love reading nonfiction in my classroom. I think it opens up more chances for students to fall in love with reading. I might be able to hook some reluctant readers by reading these high interest nonfiction articles. Once we have them hooked we can show them the nonfiction books of Seymour Simon or Steve Jenkins. From there the sky is the limit.

I also love the article of the week because it allows me to introduce a way for students to "code" their thinking as they read. This year we want students to understand that reading is thinking. When students are coding a text, they are showing their thinking. Coding a text is a simple way to show your thinking about what you are reading. This year we have used two-column notes, a 3...2..1., a strategy where we look at the title only and ask questions we could answer when we read the text, and selective highlighting. We will keep exposing different strategies to the class. As the year goes on, they will have a treasure trove of different strategies they can use when they read an article.

I hope that you are having a great week.