MINILESSON Preview the Text to Determine What it Will Teach and How CONNECTION Compare revving a motorcycle before driving to what nonfiction readers do when they preview a text to get ready to read.
“Right now, imagine that you’re getting onto a motorcycle.” Dramatize leaning forward, reaching for the handlebars. “Hold tight to the handlebars. Before you shift into drive, you can rev up the motor.” Turn your wrists away from you, as if adding gas, and make a “vroom, vroom” noise. “You try it—be that motorcycle driver, about to take off down the road. Rev up your motor.” Make motorcycle noises with the kids. “Did you know that nonfiction readers do this, too? Nonfiction readers rev up their minds before reading. We do this by looking over a text and asking, ‘What is this text about? How will it go?’ We do this especially when we are reading expository nonfiction books—the all- about kind of nonfiction books like most of the texts in your text sets. Looking over the title and subtitles, the photographs and diagrams, helps you get your mind revved up to read.” Name the teaching point. “Today I want to teach you that before you read a nonfiction text, it is important to rev up your mind so you are ready to learn. It helps to look over the cover and a few pages, think- ing, ‘What will the text probably teach? How will it go?’” Add this point to the “Nonfiction Readers Research New Topics” anchor chart. TEACHING Demonstrate previewing a text, trying to anticipate subtopics the book will teach so students think about how those connect with what they already know. “Will you help me preview the next book we’re going to read next during read-aloud? It’s called Plants in Different Habitats by Bobbie Kalman and Rebecca Sjonger. Let’s rev up our minds. Vroom, vroom!” Project the cover and read the title and author. “ Plants in Different Habitats. From the title, it sounds like we’ll learn about plants that grow in different kinds of places. The images on the cover fit with that too, don’t they? I see some plants that look more like desert plants, some that look more like rainforest plants. That fits with something we jotted on our concept map—that plants grow in all different places around the world. “Let’s study the table of contents next. Think with me.” Project the table of contents. “Doesn’t it look like we’ll first learn a bit about plants in general—what plants are, how they make food? Then, do you agree that it looks like there are a bunch of sections about dif- ferent habitats that plants live in: boreal forests, grasslands, mountains, freshwater? “Did you see that by previewing the book, we’ve gotten a sense for how it will go? Now that we know the subtopics the book will teach us, we can think whether we already know some things about those subtopics. We can rev our minds up to be ready to think, ‘That connects with something I know’ or ‘That makes me wonder if…’”
Any time students read non- fiction, you’ll want to remind them to preview the text. There- fore, you may want to develop gestures that you can use repeatedly—your own secret class language. For example, you might decide that a ‘what’s in here?’ shrug signals that readers wonder what the text will teach, and an ‘on and on’ gesture signals that they think about how the text seems to be organized.
Nonfiction Readers Research New Topics
During Session 4 in Let’s Gather, you’ll begin reading Plants in Dif- ferent Habitats with students.
In a review of literature on meta- cognition, Jacobs and Paris (1987) found evidence that stu - dents are more apt to monitor their reading if they make plans and set goals. Skilled readers are strategic before, during, and after reading.
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Bend I • Strengthen Nonfiction Research Skills: Researching Plants
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