Students as Researchers

Early Learners as Researchers: 
Fiction vs Non-Fiction Books

Knowledge: 
Non-fiction books provide our students with access to information about who we are, about animals and plants, about how the world works, and the amazement of the world around us.  Non-fiction books help build student vocabulary and teaches them to build curiosity  and gather accurate information.  Non-fiction books are a great way to answer students questions and build connections with the world around them.  Integrating non-fiction books in your classroom library and read-aloud collection is a great first step to laying a foundation of research skills in young learners.  It is important to not only expose these books to young children, but to show them how to distinguish them from other books in the classroom and how to use them as a valuable tool, and useful source of information.  Young children that are reading books through the interpretation of illustrations can begin to distinguish the difference between story books with drawings, paintings, or collage with that of a non-fiction book that often has real-life photographs, charts, and or diagrams.  It is important for teachers to model the differences between fiction and non-fiction while reading each type of book aloud, and how to distinguish whether a book is a valuable source of facts and information or if the book is just telling us a story.  Once students gain a mastery of this skill they may find that some books have a combination of fiction and non-fiction elements as shown in the sorting activity above.

Application:  
There are many ways to integrate the use and function of non-fiction books in the early childhood classroom.  We are constantly exposing young children to hands-on science content, which creates a meaningful experience for young children.  Their naturally inquisitive minds often have questions while exploring.  Instead of googling questions or answering their questions directly, why not make them do the work themselves.  Direct your student to the classroom library.  Our library is always filled with a variety of non-fiction and fiction books related to the topics we are teaching.  Show children how to choose a text that is likely to provide them with valuable, and factual information.  How do you teach this skill?  When choosing books to read aloud, choose a variety of fiction and non-fiction books.  While reading the books aloud, model to the children how you know the book is either providing information and facts or if it is just telling a story.  As students begin to understand this concept have them sort the books read loud into two categories: Fiction or Non-fiction.  

If this activity is assigned independently to young students, they will have to sort based on the images on the book cover and on the pages.  Many students will notice that most of the non-fiction books have real-life photographs, but as they continue to explore, will learn that not all non-fiction books use photographs.  Analyzing the images is a great place to start with young children that are unable to use the text as a clue to distinguish between the two.  If the teacher models finding answers in non-fiction books, students will naturally follow suit.

In our classroom, we have a scholastic book order that comes on a monthly basis.  Students could use the catalog or a digital copy of the catalog to circle which books are non-fiction.

This also might motivate young learners to request the purchase of non-fiction books for use at home.

Reflection:
Young students are always curious for answers.  I think it is important for them to learn in the digital age that information is not only on google, or with Siri.  I think students are also more apt to remember information that they gain on their own as opposed to information that is just given to them.  A number of our older students have become very frustrated that we will not just give them answer, but ultimately after using non-fiction books as a tool to answer their questions they take true ownership in not only the information they have gained but how they have gained it.  Now, when students have "ah-ha" discoveries due to their hard research, we allow them to share their gained knowledge with the class.  We always have the students include how they found their information.  When students see other students as the teacher, they become motivated to do the same hard work to achieve a similar outcome for themselves.  This is just the stepping stones to teaching young students how to research and how to determine if their research is of true value.