Becoming Experts

Second Grade Readers Grow Knowledge!

In Second Grade, a whole unit is devoted to nonfiction reading. Students practice reading information books, while also learning the difference between fiction and nonfiction books and best practices for reading books that are more technical and information-dense.

This unit is split into three bends, with each bend focusing on a central theme. The first bend starts out with the best practices when reading nonfiction. Second Grade readers should begin to read nonfiction books differently than their fiction books. For example, in this bend, we practice noticing the details, putting the details together in our minds, asking questions, thinking about what is this book (or part) trying to teach me, and notice, understand, and use keywords from the text. During this bend, we utilize stop and jots to help us keep track of the information and keywords from our nonfiction books.

In the second bend, it primarily focuses on keywords. Keywords are the words that the author uses that is specific to the topic. For example, an author that is writing about sharks would use keywords such as gills, fins, pups, and predator. Nonfiction readers should notice, understand, and use the keywords in order to 'talk the talk' about their text. Readers will learn to expect and lookout for keywords, use text and graphic features to help find keywords, use the whole page to help understand the keyword's meaning, think about what a keyword is similar to, and reread the section like an expert now knowing how to pronounce it and what it means.

The final bend will require students to read more than one book on the SAME topic. This will allow readers to grow their knowledge ACROSS different books. Students will notice the parts of their books that go together, add information from all of their books, spot differences (big and small), and be able to retell whole topics, not just books.

From this unit, Second Graders will become nonfiction reading lovers and experts on various nonfiction topics!