WORK TIME Support Students Reading Challenging Texts If students encounter… Then you might teach… Unclear pronoun references “Nonfiction texts are tricky because authors often use pronouns—words like they , it , everything , theirs — in place of nouns. When you spot a pronoun, it helps to make sure you know who or what or where that pronoun is referencing.
“Will you and a partner try reading a bit of this text together? Whenever you come to a pronoun, substi- tute the noun you think it references. If you aren’t sure, reread that whole little part of the text, because the author will clue readers into the pronoun reference, and sometimes you miss those clues.” “Something beautiful—and tricky—is that authors of nonfiction texts won’t always use the exact same word to refer to something. An author might say, ‘ the forest ,’ and then say, ‘ this thicket ,’ and later, ‘ this grove of trees ’—and that confuses some readers who think each of those are entirely different. Some readers don’t realize those terms are all synonyms for each other, that they are all different ways to say the same thing. It looks like your author has done just that! “Will you and a partner see if you can spot instances where your author has used various terms to refer to_____.” “You found some information in your book that’s unfamiliar. It sounds like you already tried rereading and reading ahead to try to figure out the information, but you’re still not sure what it means. That happens sometimes. Sometimes the author will expect that you know something that you might not know yet. “In those situations, you have a few options. You could ask a partner who might know more, or you could look for information in the index or table of contents of another text that will help you. Or you could just label that part as confusing, and continue learning, planning to come back to this once you know more.”
The author using multiple words to refer to the same concept
Places where the author expects prior knowledge that the reader doesn’t have
Long sentences that are challenging to read fluently “Wow! That sentence has a bunch of parts, doesn’t it? I see commas, and even a hyphen inside it. Geez! When you see a long sentence like that, sometimes you have to read it a bunch of times until it sounds smooth. You can also talk about each of the parts to figure out how they fit together. “Let’s try this. I’ll read it aloud, and then we’ll both read it, and then you can read it on your own. Then, if it still feels tricky, we can talk about each part. Here goes.” Multiple genres within a text “Can I show you something cool? When you ask the question, ‘How will this text go?’ you will some-
times see that your book actually has chapters or sections that are written in different ways. For instance, there might be one chapter that is a little story, another chapter that is a how-to text, and another that is organized in questions and answers. “Preview your text, especially noticing if the sections go different ways.”
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Bend I • Strengthen Nonfiction Research Skills: Researching Plants
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