Reading Rockets
Reading Rockets: How to Read Nonfiction Text
Kids love to read about real people, places, and events. Nonfiction books present real information in engaging and interesting ways. However, most kids read a lot more fiction than nonfiction, so spend some extra time helping your reader...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Animal Study From Fiction to Facts
Contains plans for five 50-minute lessons that ask students to compare and research information about animals from fiction and nonfiction texts. In addition to student objectives and standards, these instructional plans contains links to...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Sandra Day O'connor
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text Sandra Day O'Connor and a linked passage about Margaret Thatcher and then complete questions over the paired texts.RI.11-12.5 Evaluate text structure
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: Making a Storyboard
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about a girl whose aunt is a children's book author and answer questions about comprehension, sequencing, supporting details, main idea, vocabulary, and more. Links to a...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: A Playground Problem
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about building a model for a new playground and answer questions about comprehension, supporting details, main ideas, vocabulary, and more. Links to a paired text and...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: The Unknown Hall of Famer
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about baseball Hall of Famer George "Lolin" Osorio and answer questions about comprehension, supporting details, inferences, main idea, transitions, and more. Links to a...
Read Works
Read Works: Passages: The Campanile
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a nonfiction text about the Campanile bell tower in Berkeley, California and answer questions about comprehension, supporting details, main ideas, transitions, and more. Links to a paired...
E Reading Worksheets
E Reading Worksheets: Summarizing Worksheets and Activities
In this instructional resource, students will learn more about summarizing texts. Worksheets and PowerPoint lessons are provided to reinforce understanding about ways to summarize nonfiction texts and to identify main ideas. This module...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Analyzing Text Complexity of Non Fiction Sources
This lesson will help students read and comprehend nonfiction, specifically biographies, through determining criteria for text complexity. Included is a PDF and Smart Notebook titled Determining Text Complexity, and an example of a...
Read Works
Read Works: Truman and His Doctrine: Revolutionary, Unprecedented, and Bipartisan
[Free Registration/Login Required] This 5-page PDF is the nonfiction article "Truman and His Doctrine: Revolutionary, Unprecedented, and Bipartisan" by Elizabeth Edwards Spalding which discusses Truman's policy to provide aid to Turkey...
Read Works
Read Works: Volcanoes: Magma Rising: Studying Volcanoes
[Free Registration/Login Required] This two-page PDF nonfiction passage entitled "Volcanoes: Magma Rising: Studying Volcanoes" discusses how they study volcanoes to learn how they work. It is part of Paired Texts: "Volcanoes: Magma...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Graphic Organizers Bring About Good Science Read/writing
This lesson plan uses graphic organizers to engage students in reading comprehension strategies for informational text in science. Venn Diagram, Hierarchy, Time Line, Cluster Diagram, and Flow Chart reproducible pages are included with...
US Department of Education
U.s. Dept. Of Education: Teaching Approaches: Text Comprehension Instruction
What is text comprehension? How does comprehension improve our reading ability? Check out this site to learn more about reading comprehension instruction. There are some wonderful suggestions for teachers to implement in their classrooms.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
Depaul University: Center for Urban Education: Evaluate Decisions [Pdf]
A nonfiction graphic organizer is available to help students evaluate decisions of people. Students will analyze how characters interact and develop throughout the course of a nonfiction text.
Ohio State University
Ohio State University: Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears: Reader of the Rocks
A nonfiction article where students read about Julie Codispoti, assistant curator at the United States Polar Rock Repository, located at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center. The article provides an overview of Antarctic...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans - sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading...
Read Works
Read Works: 1st Grade Lesson: Classifying Texts
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lesson plan in which learners use the books Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London and Life Cycle of a Frog by Angela Royston to learn to classify texts as fiction or nonfiction. Lesson includes...
English for Everyone
Reading Comprehnsion Assessment: "Battle of Chancellorsville" [Pdf]
Read Theory provides a free reading comprehension assessment that is designed for students in the high school grades. Nine multiple choice questions and three extended response questions are included on the nonfiction reading assessment.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Listen and Read
Choose to read and/or listen to 15 different books on members of the community, animals, and the President. Review vocabulary at the end of each book.
Read Works
Read Works: John Brown's Antislavery Raid
[Free Registration/Login Required] This ReadWorks passage provides a brief history of John Brown, an American abolitionist. A paired passage, a lower level passage with related content, and a question sheet are available to help students...
ReadWriteThink
Read Write Think: Text Features: Non Fiction [Pdf]
Compare the printed page to an electronic web page and use this activity to discuss the similarities and differences. A cross-curricular tie-in with ecosystems. Could easily be adapted to another subject area.
Education.com
Education.com: Compare and Contrast Texts on the Same Topic
[Free Registration/Login Required] Explain that even if two texts are written about the same topic, they can have different information depending on the author's perspective or the source of the information. When we compare two texts on...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: For Middle Schoolers: Activities to Build College Level Reading Skills
ACT has developed this list of activities to help middle-school students improve their reading ability. Parents and educators can use this information to help ensure that these students are on target for college and career readiness.
TES Global
Blendspace: Nonfiction 2014 2015
A learning module with twenty-one links to images, websites, texts, slideshows, and videos about nonfiction and informational text reading skills.