If you’ve been around for awhile, you know how much I love to share picture books and chapter books with kids. There’s something so exciting about getting caught up in the characters and storyline. But I also know how important it is to share nonfiction texts with students. Here are several reasons why children need nonfiction in the primary classroom.
BENEFITS OF NONFICTION TEXTS IN THE PRIMARY CLASSROOM
Nonfiction Texts Allow Students to Explore Interests
Many students already gravitate towards nonfiction, especially when they are interested in a particular topic. Since kids are naturally curious, nonfiction encourages students to read and find the answers to those questions.
Build Background Knowledge
When students are able to read and build background knowledge about a particular topic, they can apply that learning in new and unfamiliar situations.
Teach Children About Their World
Rudine Sims Bishop wrote, “Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real, imagined, familiar, or strange.” These informational texts open the windows to the world around us without the need to leave home.
Nonfiction Texts Expand Vocabulary
When presented with a nonfiction text, there will often be new or unfamiliar vocabulary within the pages. Reading these texts help students increase their word knowledge and expand their vocabulary. Kids also have many opportunities to learn these terms through context clues, photographs, and the glossary.
Provide Opportunities to Practice Reading Skills
Nonfiction texts expose students to photographs, tables, charts, graphs, diagrams, and more. As students learn to navigate these nonfiction text features, they can determine what is important in the text and how to access that information more quickly. Students also have opportunities to work with various text structures.
Prepare Students for Upper Elementary and Beyond
Reading is a lifelong skill. No matter what path students choose, they will face informational texts in the future with textbooks, manuals, contracts, online articles, and more. Using nonfiction texts in the primary grades will help students in the long-run.
Nonfiction Series Books for Kids
Ready to add some nonfiction titles to your classroom library, but not sure where to start? Here are some of my favorite nonfiction series books for kids. As always, please make sure that the books you share have accurate and up-to-date information in them.
Do you already have nonfiction texts in the classroom, but need resources to pair with them? I can help! Click on these links to learn more.
Happy Reading!
