Last week, we began our nonfiction unit in reading workshop so a lot of my reading lately has been focused on nonfiction - I love finding new nonfiction titles to add to my classroom library! I love finding nonfiction texts that will engage my students through the text features, structure, photos, layout, and of course an interesting topic! Some of my many favorite nonfiction authors are Seymour Simon, Nicola Davies, Steven Jenkins, and Bobbie Kalman. One of my favorites, Melissa Stewart, is going to be presenting at a local workshop in CT this week! If you live near the Hartford area, click here for information about the upcoming event. Since Melissa Stewart's workshop is this week, I read many of her books this weekend and began looking for new ones to purchase. Some of my favorites from this week are:
This is one of the many titles in her "How Do You Know?" series that includes topics such as: Butterfly or Moth?; Frog or Toad?; Insect or Spider?; and so on. This series is perfect for teaching students how to read nonfiction texts written in a "Comparison Structure." They are also great texts to model note-taking strategies, such as a T-chart or venn diagram, when reading a text that compares two different topics.
National Geographic Readers: Deadliest Animals by Melissa Stewart
This book engages the reader right from the introduction by surprising the reader that the African Lion is not actually the deadliest animal after all and there are many surprising deadly animals. Each page focuses on a different animal which lends itself perfectly to teaching students how to identify a main idea and support it with details. Students are definitely going to love listening to the amazing facts about these deadly animals and looking at the detailed photos.
I have always loved the National Geographic Readers and was pleasantly surprised to find out that Melissa Stewart is the author of a few books in the series. Dolphins is a high interest book with great text features. There is not a lot of print on each page and the print is large so it is easy to read. The National Geographic Readers series has books on a variety of topics, levels, and written by different authors.
Happy Reading! :)
So nice to see these Melissa Stewart titles highlighted. I use the National Geographic titles in my room. I don't know the How do you know titles and will now look for them. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMelanie, I have to admit that I don't know non-fiction authors as much as I should. These books all look good, especially the "how do you know?" series. I researched Melissa Stewart, who has written over 100 books! I actually have one, titled "Under The Snow"-it's gorgeous & informative. Thank you so much for telling about the authors you like!
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Linda, I usually down myself in fantasy or fiction - and have very few nonfiction titles, so I'm glad that you shared all these. I shall look for Melissa Stewart too. :)
ReplyDeleteI love finding great nonfiction texts - I will be sharing more next Monday!
Delete