How to teach Nonfiction Books

Anchor Chart for Teaching Nonfiction   

Students need to be taught how to read nonfiction books!
The author's purpose for writing nonfiction is to give information and sometimes to persuade the reader. I made this anchor chart by utilizing pictures from books, you could also obtain pictures from the net.  

1. Title: The title is the big picture of the story.    
2. Table of contents:  Reading nonfiction is different from fiction.  Looking at the table of contents, the reader can decide which topics he/she wants to read, and which order he/she wants to read them.  When reading fiction you need to read the whole story from beginning to end, whereas nonfiction you can read it in any order.
3. Heading:  Emphasize to your students to always read the heading. There is a lot of information in nonfiction books, the heading will aid them in understanding what that section is all about. The heading reveals what the author thinks is important.  You can use the analogy of an orchestra when teaching nonfiction.  An orchestra has several sections; the horns, the drums, the flutes ... that each sound differently.  Each section is different, but still part of the orchestra.  Nonfiction  has different sections that have separate main ideas but are still part of the big idea of the book.   When a student is done reading a section under a heading, they should be able to give information about the heading.  Ex. if the heading is; How Are Tornadoes Formed, the reader should be able to tell how tornadoes are formed after reading that section. Ex, if the heading is; What To Do if a Tornado Occurs, then the read should be able to state what to do when a tornado occurs.  Tell your students not to try to memorize every fact when reading nonfiction, that would be overwhelming.  Instead, have the students state what was important from each section or heading.
4. Photographs:  The photographs aid the reader in seeing exactly what something look likes.  The caption labels gives information about the photographs.  Make sure that students look at photographs, maps and read the caption labels before reading the page.  The pictures can aid the student in understanding what they are going to read about.  They can look at the pictures again when they have finished reading the page.
5. Glossary:  Show students how to use the glossary.  The glossary clarifies meanings of words.  You could take one word from the glossary and have students draw a picture and write a sentence to go with that word.