Non-Fiction Reading Strategies

Adapted from: Reading Nonfiction: Notice & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies

I have been using this strategy this year to teach reading of nonfiction texts and have found it to be especially helpful for my struggling readers.  I really like that this strategy involves using questions to guide reading, but then writing annotations using sentence stems.  Here are some of the basic resources that I have developed:

All the Anchor Charts

This strategy essentially asks students to consider 3 Big Questions as they read any nonfiction text:

 

 The first Big Question asks them to look for anything that they are surprised by...anything that makes them go: "Huh...I never through of it quite like that before" or "Really?!?!?" or "Is that true?"  As they note these surprising things, they are asked to complete the following sentence stems as annotations in order to make sense of the text.

What Surprised Me? Anchor Chart

 The next Big Question ask that students notice anything the author assumed they already knew.  I really like the way this question is posed, rather than making them feel less-than by implying that they are lacking knowledge, this question puts the responsibility on the author for making assumptions of their knowledge.  They are asked as they read for this to notice anything that the author thought they already knew (but they don't)...for example: terms, imagery, connections, references, etc.  As they note these assumptions, they are asked to complete the following sentence stems in order to make sense of the text.

What did the Author Think I Already Knew? Anchor Chart

 The last Big Question asks students to notice portions of the text that challenge, change or confirm their prior knowledge on the topic.  I like this question, because it honors the prior knowledge that they approach the text with.  Before reading, students need to consider what they already know about a topic and the opinions they have about a topic.  As they read they are asked to use the following sentence stems in order to note as their ideas/opinions are addressed.

What Challenged, Changed, or Confirmed What I Knew?  Anchor Chart

 This is a sample article annotated using these strategies: