Nonfiction texts offer students real life pictures with closely related text. Students are able to use the pictures to aid in the reading and also when reading the text, they can associate a picture. The sentence structure was simple using three or four word sentences. The book offer supporting questions to scaffold or check for learning with the answers available at their fingers tips. The one challenge of nonfiction would be vocabulary. There may have to be some sort of vocabulary instruction before reading or the reading takes place in a large group setting where a teacher can check for understanding.
Fiction texts provided students with repetition and pictures related to the story. Repetition allows students to predict what may come next by following the pattern. The pictures did not always relate to the text but a student could tell a story from the pictures. Fiction does not provide much content or vocabulary learning.
Overall the purpose of the lesson would decide which type of text a teacher should utilize. For example we just finished a unit on the ocean and I used every nonfiction book I could get my hands on to provide my ELL's with concrete examples of what we were learning. When my focus was on story retelling or sequence I looked to fiction books such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Katy,
ReplyDeleteYou have stated a good case for both genres! They have their advantages and disadvantages, however, both can be used effectively with our ELLs!
Good post!
Donna