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LMC Podcast Script

Episode 3, 2010 – 2011 school year

Facts, Just the Facts! Using Nonfiction Picture Books

Deborah B. Ford

Facts, Just the Facts! Nonfiction makes up more than 50 % of most school libraries’ print collection. It’s a good thing too- most libraries check out more nonfiction than fiction materials. Textbooks are also nonfiction, but sad to say, many of our students read at a lower level, making those heavy tomes not only cumbersome in weight, but also in value. Adding nonfiction trade books to your content area lessons will not only provide the support material you need for your curriculum, it will sell like hotcakes!

If time is also a factor and content is important, teachers and librarians can use nonfiction books to teach the same content, but use less time to do it. Today’s nonfiction is often in picture book format- they have less than 50 pages and use pictures to support the text. Shorter books allow students to grasp main concepts more quickly. Many of these newer books have mature themes, require prior knowledge and have a higher vocabulary than their appearance may imply. Follett Library Resources has a link on Titlewave to Picture Books for Older Readers.

One of my favorite nonfiction picture books is Look Behind:Tales of Animal Ends by Lola Schaefer. It’s an alphabet book about animal butts. If you read even one page of the book, kids will flock to the shelves and the computers to read more about the fascinating facts that are introduced in this short, informational picture book. From how a bombardier beetle mixes chemicals in its body to a boiling point to why a walrus has tusks, Schaefer teases the reader into the world of facts about animal defense mechanisms.

Or suppose you are teaching explorers. Students might come to the library looking for a 100-page biography, only to find out that there are very few for them with that restriction. What, then, is a teacher to do? Doing a simple search in the online catalog, you may find that there are nonfiction picture book biographies like, I, Matthew Henson by Carole Boston Weatherford and Keep On! by Deborah Hopkinson for example. By encouraging students to read more than one book per subject, students can become researchers themselves.

After reading both biographies, students will find that they have information in one that they didn’t read in the other. If they read Hopkinson’s book, they will learn that Henson left life on the sea to become a store clerk. If they also read Weatherford’s they will learn why he didn’t continue at sea after Captain Childs died. (If you want to know, you’ll have to read both books yourself.)

We want students to read several pieces of information and compare them. We want them to ask questions. We want them to think about what they read. So after they read more than one picture book, students can then write about what they know, based on more than one source. They can ask questions about what they still don’t know. Like a writer, they can evaluate and compare all the information they read to come to conclusions and produce their own work.

What are some specific ways we can use these materials? You can use these nonfiction picture books as introductions to a teaching standard. You can use them as a review or summary at the conclusion of a unit. Nonfiction picture books can be read aloud in 15 to 20 minutes, allowing time in a library or a classroom to read, write and think about the subject. Students also can do research to prove the information in the shorter work. Think about the bombardier beetle, for example.

By using nonfiction picture books to supplement the curriculum, we can strengthen our valuable time by providing content in a shorter time frame. Students can be directed to evaluate, compare and search for information. Students can develop fluency by hearing higher level vocabulary in the upper grades. Using nonfiction picture books allows the teacher to meet many needs with one stone. Check out my blog, Libraries Matter, for a partial list of great nonfiction picture books to use with your students.

Resources Featured in this Podcast

Follett Library Resources http://www.titlewave.com/login/

Libraries Matter http://deborahford.blogspot.com/

Deborah Hopkinson http://deborahhopkinson.com/Historical%20Fiction/keep_on.html

Carole Weatherford http://www.caroleweatherford.com/books.htm

Lola Schaefer http://www.lolaschaefer.com/content/lolas-books

This script is C 2011 LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION.