Reading nonfiction makes up the majority of the reading curriculum, from kindergarten all the way through high school. Students’ classes outside of English, such as science, history, or math, use primarily nonfiction texts to teach content, making nonfiction reading an essential skill. Recently, education standards have put a greater emphasis on nonfiction reading, but teaching it can be difficult, especially in the younger grades. Here are some tips and resources to help you teach nonfiction reading comprehension strategies successfully.
Why Is Nonfiction Reading Important?
Being able to successfully read and comprehend nonfiction text becomes increasingly important as children advance to higher grade levels. They’ll find that through high school and college, the majority of their daily reading is nonfiction, and being able to analyze and understand it will be a key factor in their success.
- Taps Children’s Interest: Nonfiction will also appeal to students who are interested in areas other than English, and will improve their overall reading skills. Students who don’t enjoy reading fiction will find that nonfiction appeals to their interests, and thus will be more motivated to read daily because they’ve found a topic they enjoy reading about.
- Builds Knowledge: Reading nonfiction builds social and global knowledge at an early age and connects children of different nationalities because it enables them to learn about each other’s homes and cultures.
- Academic Vocabulary: Important vocabulary that children will use in their writing and speech often comes from reading nonfiction. While fiction provides casual vocabulary and speech patterns, nonfiction usually provides more elevated and formal language.
Strategies to Improve Kids’ Nonfiction Reading Comprehension
Reading Informational Text for grades 1–6 provides practice and strategies for developing nonfiction reading skills and comprehension. Below are listed tips and strategies from this teaching resource that are great for at-home practice or teaching activities for the classroom. Nonfiction reading articles and comprehension strategies in each grade level provide reading topics on multiple subjects such as geography, biology, social studies and more.
- Text Structure: Start by teaching children the characteristics of nonfiction text, such as text structure. This means students will be able to recognize nonfiction text based on characteristics such as headings, maps or charts, indexes, etc. Learning this distinction will help increase overall reading comprehension.
- Determine Importance: Main Idea vs. Interesting Details: With all reading, determining the main idea of a text and its supporting details will help children fully comprehend the text. Use headings and charts to help determine what the most important details of the text are. Often, a good question for a child to answer is:
“Why did the author write this?” or
“What was his or her purpose?” - Ask Questions: As students read, have them write down questions they may have. This will develop their overall comprehension of the reading and enhance their understanding of the content.
- Use Visual Notetaking to Organize Information: Obtain hard copies of the text that students can highlight, underline, and take notes on. Being able to separate and organize information as they read will help with their comprehension and keep longer texts manageable. This is also useful for finding main ideas.
- Summing It All Up: Either by section, paragraph, or chapter, have students write a short summary about what that section was about. This will help them find main ideas and important details and quickly review key aspects of the text.
- 3-2-1 Strategy: As a class or individually, after reading the text, have students write down 3 things they discovered, 2 interesting things, and 1 question about the topic. This will increase their understanding of the topic, improve comprehension, and maintain interest.
Reading Comprehension Fundamentals for grades 1–6 provides the perfect balance of fiction and nonfiction texts and systematically teaches skills and strategies to help children practice important comprehension concepts.
Download free sample lessons of Reading Comprehension Fundamentals here.
Nonfiction reading makes up a good majority of daily reading as students grow and advance, so don’t wait to start teaching them these valuable skills! Use different strategies and topics to keep students engaged in their reading, whether it is nonfiction or fiction.
For additional nonfiction reading resources check out Nonfiction Reading Practice for grades 1-6.
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Christine Wooler has experience working with children as a youth soccer coach and summer camp counselor. She is currently studying English Literature and journalism in college. She enjoys exploring educational topics that help students have fun while learning.