Nonfiction Matters: Answering Text-Based Questions (Reading)

This class series is entitled, Nonfiction Matters, because nonfiction is of growing importance as kids get older. During students' 4th grade year, 50% of their reading should be from expository text . By the end of high school, 70% of a student's required reading will be nonfiction. Many students are not equipped with the skills needed to comprehend difficult nonfiction texts. This 4 week course  will teach kids how to do close readings of nonfiction texts and answer text-based questions.

Each class will be conducted in the format of a guided reading group. We will read and work through the text together as a group. Students will be using the chat box and discussion to respond to questions. We will read the text both aloud and silently. After I introduce the standard that we are studying, most of the class will be focused on reading and answering questions about the text.  This class is intended for students who are reading on or close to a 4th grade level. 

Schedule
Week 1: We will read nonfiction articles and practice answering explicit questions, where the answer can be found in the text.
Week 2: We will read nonfiction articles and practice writing answers to questions by restating the question and answering questions in complete sentences.
Week 3: We will read nonfiction articles and learn how to find answers to questions that you must think and search for in several parts of the text.
Week 4: We will read nonfiction passages that require students to infer and draw conclusions from the text when answering questions.

Each course in the series will focus on different upper elementary informational standards that students need to understand when working with nonfiction texts. Courses may be taken out of order or independently.
1. Nonfiction Matters: Answering Text-based Questions
2. Nonfiction Matters: All About Text Structure
3. Nonfiction Matters: Finding the Main Idea
4. Nonfiction Matters: 1st and 2nd Hand Accounts
5. Nonfiction Matters: Inferring Cause & Effect Relationships in Informational Texts
6. Nonfiction Matters: Identifying Text Evidence Across Multiple Texts
7. Nonfiction Matters: Interpreting Text Features