1.
Family Literacy Bags: Adventures in Reading - 15 downloadable “family reading” book bags which also can be used for classroom learning. Each bag suggests a fiction and non-fiction high quality book about a specific topic/theme. These are also books that are usually found in school libraries. Each bag also provides a hands-on craft experience, an imagination activity and a “get real” activity which focuses on real world experiences. Literacy bags are listed by topic and by grade level (either kindergarten or first grade). Each book bag provides a list of alternative fiction and non-fiction titles on the topic as well as links to related websites.
2.
Reading for Information provides strategies to help very early learners understand non-fiction text (stories that give information).
3. The
Starfall website provides fiction and non-fiction stories to read on line.
4. The
Reading Quest website offers free downloads of Venn Diagrams and other compare and contrast charts.
5.
EducationPlace offers free downloadable graphic organizers of all sorts including three different story maps.
6.
Download story maps – such as: story pyramid, somebody-wanted-but-so – adapted for history/social studies. Although for older students, these free downloadable maps provide ideas for graphic organizers teachers might use with non-fiction texts and to compare fiction and non-fiction texts about the same topic.
7. The
Read Write Think website provides information on interactive story maps to use in discussion and writing.
8. Here is a
powerpoint on using story maps.
9. Link to for an
abundance of graphic organizers including those that can be used to compare and contrast characteristics of fiction and non-fiction storybooks, picture books, and poetry.
10. The article,
Building World Knowledge: Motivating Children to Read and Enjoy Informational Text by Barbara Marinak and Linda Gambrell (2009)
11. Read this blog,
Sound It Out, about teaching informational text written by author, researcher, and teacher, Joanne Meier. Links to helpful ideas are provided.