MORE NONFICTION, PLEASE! Ideas for promoting nonfiction reading T

WHY SHOULD I READ NONFICTION? The average child in the United States spends roughly 4 hours and 29 minutes a day watching TV, 2 hours and 31 minutes listening to music, and 1 hour and 13 minutes playing video games. And how much of their leisure time to do they spend reading nonfiction? Less than 4 minutes a day. That's the finding from a national study sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). Sure, children are reading outside school—about 25 minutes a day, according to the study. But most of that reading appears to be fiction. Another study found that juvenile fiction outsells nonfiction by more than 4 to 1 (Milliot, 2012). From: December 2012/January 2013 | Volume 70 | Number 4 Common Core: Now What? Pages Research Says / Nonfiction Reading Promotes Student Success Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller T

GOAL: Our goal was to have students read more nonfiction by choice. In the lower grades, we hoped that in building their nonfiction strategies and exposing students to great titles, they would choose more “good fit” nonfiction books for recreational reading. In the upper grades, we hoped that by first engaging students with narrative nonfiction books, we would hook them into reading more nonfiction by choice. S

LESSON LAY OUT First Grade: Information from the text and from pictures*, reading for information, animal research Second Grade: fiction versus nonfiction and strategies for nonfiction reading*, locating information, biographies (presidents), famous American research, countries research using print and electronic sources Third Grade: nonfiction series*, famous African American research, digital citizenship research using print and electronic sources Fourth Grade: research and reading for interest (using narrative nonfiction as a starting point)*, web site reliability,* advanced text features of nonfiction, famous Missourian research using print and electronic sources Fifth Grade: : research and reading for interest (using narrative nonfiction as a starting point)*, explorer research, organizational patterns of nonfiction text T&S

FIRST GRADE

SECOND GRADE

THIRD GRADE

DISPLAYS TO PROMOTE NONFICTION Promoting nonfiction with book displays is an excellent way to increase awareness of what your library has to offer. It’s another way for students to access more nonfiction, please! T

SEASONAL DISPLAYS Create fun displays highlighting related nonfiction!

SEASONAL DISPLAY Nonfiction books dealing with snow, winter, skiing, skating, and snow boarding create this darling snowman.

THEME DISPLAYS Similar nonfiction displays can center on a theme such as disasters and survival.

GENRE DISPLAYS WHICH INCLUDE NONFICTION Create a space for students to post their favorite nonfiction titles similar to the fiction display below.

MONTHLY DISPLAYS OF NONFICTION TITLES

MAKER SPACES THAT ENCOURAGE NONFICTION

JANUARY MAKER SPACE

MAKER SPACES THAT ENCOURAGE NONFICTION

FEBRUARY MAKER SPACE

MAKER SPACES THAT ENCOURAGE NONFICTION

MARCH MAKER SPACE