Chapter 6 - Reading To Learn

This chapter was very intrigueing and raised some excellent points about reading. The main point that this chapter, Reading to Learn, is addressing is the false idea that story books are more interesting than informational texts are. This chapter mentions that story books are only more intriguing to children because they are exposed to this type of text way before they are every exposed to informational text (newspaper, textbooks, magazines, etc.) They are familiar with story books because maybe mom or dad read them bedtime stories, or their nanny/babysitter or child care or preschool caregiver read them story books. BUT what if, this chapter questions, what if children were exposed to more magazines and other informational texts at an early age, would they be more attracted to them throughout their academic years growing up?A study of first grade classrooms revealed that we only spend around 3.6 minutes on informational text a day. How many hours are in a school day? 6...and we are spending less than four minutes of those six hours exposing our students to informational text. Not only does this limit their interests in text, but this also causes them to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable with this type of text.
Many people see informational or nonfiction texts only as being textbooks, newspapers, encyclopedias, atlas', dictionaries, etc. However, that is coming to a change; publishing companies are working together to make informational texts more child-friendly. They are beginning to create informational texts that are big books with larger text, more captions and more pictures. In addition, more schools are getting document cameras to project news/magazine articles and other documents to share with the class.
As mentioned in chapter six, today's nonfiction texts are filled with text features such as charts, pictures, captions, maps, tables, diagrams, and glossaries. These text features are extremely helpful to students in order for them to understand the text that is being read. These charts, diagrams, maps and photographs really help visual learners to understand that content that is being taught; rather than just roaming their eyes off to somewhere else in the classroom they can focus their eyes on the pictures and other features in the text. In addition to features such as sidebars, headlines, diagrams and captions there are also structures in order for readers to better understand concepts. Structures such as cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast, concept and definition, etc. help students obtain content in a different perspective. These text structures help students locate key points by often beginning with key phrases and signal words such as: for example, in conclusion, in summary, etc. Text structure serve almost as a guide or outline for students in information texts.
This chapter pinpoints great points in reading with elementary grade level students, or any students for that matter. The text even mentions that some of the methods mentioned above are lifetimes skills that students will take onto their college years and use them for reading. These concepts are skills that help students tremendously with their reading and comprehension improvement.