Nonfiction Reading Power Teaching Students How to Think While They Read All Kinds of Information

How can you help students find meaning in informational texts and become independent strategic readers and thinkers? This remarkable book gives teachers a wealth of effective strategies for inspiring students to think while they read all kinds of nonfiction.

Based on using the best children’s books to motivate students, Nonfiction Reading Power shows teachers how to encourage students to recognise that reading is about using their brains. The well-designed lessons are easy to follow and include tips for effectively introducing and ending each lesson.

Nonfiction Reading Power provides teachers with lessons and ideas for teaching five specific thinking strategies that support students while reading informational text. These strategies give students the tools they need to:

• zoom-in on text features and conventions
• improve comprehension by raising significant questions and making relevant inferences
• determine importance and find the main idea in a variety of text
• make connections to their own lives, other books and previous knowledge
• transform what’s on the printed page into new thinking.

Key introductory concept lessons for each strategy offer valuable insight into the purpose of each strategy. Student samples and reproducible pages support the five thinking strategies.

This valuable resource explores the particular features of nonfiction and offers lists of key books organised around strategies and subject areas. It advocates a sequence for teaching strategies that is particularly relevant for informational books, and promotes incorporating more nonfiction into the classroom through read-alouds, author study and tips for teaching nonfiction forms and text structures.

Ideal for new and experienced teachers, Nonfiction Reading Power probes the essential skills students need to process all kinds of information in school and throughout their adult lives.