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Locate Key Information in Nonfiction Text
Interpret nonfiction text with your class. Readers use key information found in nonfiction text to answer questions and problem solve. They utilize the chapter headings, diagrams, glossary, maps, and captions as well as the table of...
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Identifying Features of Nonfiction Text
Learners explore nonfiction text. They identify the cover, title page, and table of contents of a nonfiction book. Pupils work in groups to create a chapter for a nonfiction class book about heroes.
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Using a Magazine/Non-Fiction Texts
Working with magazine articles and other informational texts, learners identify the parts of a non-fiction work. The learners use SMART board files to guide instruction, as well as a transition to writing their own non-fiction article in...
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Organizational Structures of Nonfiction Text/Graphic Organizers
Fifth graders review the characteristics of a nonfiction text. In this language arts lesson plan, 5th graders understand that one can use a specific graphic organizer to help them in understanding an organizational structure. For...
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Nonfiction Text Features
Identify features of a nonfiction article in this language arts lesson. Middle schoolers apply comprehension strategies as they read the parts of the article, and analyze the author's key points. Additionally, they examine information in...
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Using Text Features
Investigate a "table of contents" with your students! They read the table of contents in Deserts by Darlene R. Stille and predict where the answers to specific questions might be found. Learners complete a worksheet in which they find...
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Nonfiction Books: Table of Contents and Index
How do you find what you're looking for when reading a nonfiction book? Even first graders can learn how to use a table of contents and an index. They use the provided images of each to locate information and answer nine questions.
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Non-Fiction Text Features
Distinguish between textual features of non-fiction in the book The Lewis and Clark Expedition and in the non-fiction story "Ta-Na-e-Ka." Third graders create posters and participate in group discussions to show their understanding of...
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Lesson Six: Nonfiction Text Elements (Part One)
Students examine nonfiction text elements in preparation for writing a nonfiction book about Lewis and Clark. In this social studies/language arts lesson, students discuss the term research and complete a cluster map. Additionally,...
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Review Parts of a Book
Begin the year with a review of the parts of a book. Exercises in the unit plan ask emergent readers to identify the information on the cover of a book and on the title page, to explain the purpose of a table of contents, and to describe...
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NonFiction Reading
Students explore reading nonfiction. In this nonfiction lesson, students practice using KWL charts to organize nonfiction information gained from reading. Students explore unfamiliar words from reading and recognize synonyms and antonyms.
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Contents and Index
It's important for your readers to understand features of informational text such as index and table of contents, so give them this visual activity to get started. They read a brief explanation of informational text, then look at an...
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Super Summarizer!!!
Emerging readers summarize a nonfiction text using a five step process. After a brief demonstration of the five-step method for summarizing text, they read a nonfiction article and write their own summary. A checklist of each summary is...
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Text Elements of Fiction and Nonfiction
Second graders examine the text elements associated with fiction and nonfiction texts. In this text elements instructional activity, 2nd graders listen to Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock by Eric A. Kimmel. They take formative...
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The Importance of Teaching Text Structure Lesson Plans
Using text structure lesson plans can help students improve their understanding of what they read.
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Short and Sweet Science
Readers learn how to summarize scientific text and evaluate the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in writing summaries. They select science-related articles you've pulled and collected from the New York Times and, with a partner,...
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Insects
It's a fact: kids love bugs! With this instructional activity, young learners explore reading informational texts and conducting research while learning about their favorite insects. Spark learners' interest by reading a book about one...
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Fluency Passages, 6th Grade
Prompt your class to examine their own negative cycles with a short reading passage. After they finish reading, they answer two questions about concepts that they can find in the text.
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Student Opinion: How Impulsive Are You?
Sure to spark lively discussion in any Language Arts classroom, this article from The York Times asks the question, 'How much self-control do you have?'. Pupils begin by reading a short passage about a study on delayed gratification and...
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We Are All Authors
Read and discuss a variety of books by different authors and have your class create their own book. They will identify the different parts of a book, then using a story they have already written, they enter their story and information...
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Reading Questions: Alex Haley's "My Furthest Back Person: The African"
Based on Alex Haley's moving essay "My Furthest Back Person: The African," these 11 questions support comprehension and prepare readers for discussion of the text. Use this tool, and the essay, as a nonfiction addition to units on...
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The Effects of Slavery
The emotional and spiritual oppression of slavery in the African-American experience is the focus of this instructional activity. Middle schoolers analyze various texts by Frederick Douglass and Maya Angelou related to freedom and...
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Introduce Vocabulary: Dinosaur Bones (Barner)
Dig into some prehistoric vocabulary in Bob Barner's informative book Dinosaur Bones. This works best if you introduce the primitive words before reading the story. These are the focus terms in the text: ancient, climate, extinct,...
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Awesome Stories: Vincent van Gogh
Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...