Informational Writing

Happy Friday EVERYONE!  I hope you have an awesome weekend planned with lots of relaxation involved.  This week on the blog, I wanted to jump into informational writing.  I was soooo excited this week as I moved through classrooms.  Soooo much nonfiction happening!  Your kiddos were so engaged!  Sea turtle, sharks & peregrine falcons!!!!

I love that you all are following the science of reading and putting this into practice in your classrooms.  Along with reading nonfiction texts, allowing them to also research and write about information is essential and  often appears on state writing assessments!  Sooooo, let's DIG in!

What is Informational Writing? 

Writing that explains or informs the reader about something.  It is based on facts typically about a social event or the natural world.  

There are 4 main types of informative writing:

Literary Nonfiction 

Expository Writing

Argumentative/Persuasive

Procedural 

U have to check out this blog post from Elementary Nest!  Soooo many amazing ideas to help you get started including mentor texts! 

I absolutely LOVE these below videos!  They are perfect for introducing informational writing to your students!

Episode 1: 

Create an anchor chart together and model what informational writing is all about! 

Let them check out some books created by students just like them!!!!  

Look at this one on Sea Turtles! 

Some are even read aloud!  

Storyjumper!

Episode 2: 

This is a great time for student to begin to collect things that they know a lot about.  Making a list or a web would be super helpful for them to refer back to for future pieces. 

Episode 3: 

Graphic organizers are always helpful in this step!  Check out these freebies to get you started!

Episode 4:

Love this anchor chart to introduce the HOOK! 

Episode 5: 

Episode 6:

This is a great time to make a connection to what they have already learned about summarizing in reading. 

Episode 7: 

Episode 8:

Here are a few templates that can be used to help students stay on track.  I love that they incorporate text features as well! 

Now it's time to PUBLISH!  Students can do this in LOTS of ways.  Check out some below!

1. Supply students with a construction paper cover that they can design and place their pages inside.  Keep these published books in your classroom library for students to read. 

2. Have students type their books into Google Slides and allow them to share their books digitally.

3. Have students do a read aloud of their book on Dojo or Seesaw!  

4. Don't forget Bookcreator!!!!

5. Buddy up with another class and share!  This would be soooo fun with a younger grade.  Let you kiddos show off their work!

6. Do an Author's Chair once a week so that students can share their writing.  

7. Mystorybook is another site to check out!

I know squeezing writing in is always a struggle but this quote reminds me every time just how important it is we allow our student to WRITE! 

QAR

I am so excited to share with you all today!  This is one of my very favorite strategies to teach!  Question, Answer, Relationship-QAR for short!

We are moving into the end of the year and that is when the assessments start whether we want them to or not. This strategy is spot on for helping students understand the different types of questions they will encounter & how they can go about finding the answers. 

It is important for students to be efficient in answering questions.  Understanding what they are looking for is super helpful!  

Questions Types:

• Right There
• Think and Search
• Author & U
• On my Own

Here is a video that explains the question types and how students can use them to guide their reading.

How can this type of explicit instruction on question types support our learners?

• It can help to improve reading comprehension.
• Supports students in how to ask questions about their reading and where to find the answers. 

• Encourages student to think beyond the text and make connections. 
• Encourages students to use higher level thinking skills while thinking creatively about the topic

Watch a teacher in action as she runs a small group reading lessons using the QAR Strategy!

(Click the Image)

Below you will find some free resources to support your kiddos in small group reading and in independent reading. 

Love that this strategy can be used in math too! Try it out with a math word problem or a graphic! 

Elaboration

Thank you for another great week at THE VIEW!!!!!!  PLCS were awesome with fantastic discussion around building background knowledge and our new Brainingcamp math tools! 

You know I LOVE brain research!  I stumbled upon an awesome learning strategy that is backed by BRAIN SCIENCE!!!!  HELLO!

ELABORATION!  

This is all about our speaking and listening standards!  Students are asked to explain and describe learning with as many details as possible! 

This is a GREAT video about teaching speaking and listening strategies & the Handing off Routine! 

By simply going beyond basic recall and encouraging students to make connections new learning will be cemented in the storage parts of the brain. 

Remember these guys?????  Well, let's get going on them!  The Science of Reading is ALL about making connections and we want our students to connect to CONTENT & texts! Click the images to grab them for FREE!

Students should be engaging in open ended questions.  They can answer with as many details as possible and then head back into check their thinking &  elaboration! 

Watch this video all about this learning strategy! 

Students can engage in this type of questioning through large group class discussions.  

I LOVE Gallery Walks for this and the FISHbowl!

Check out these 2 anchor chart to help students elaborate! 

Background Knowledge

Hi All! Thank you so much for an amazing week at PVES!  We were sooo excited to have our whole school family back together again!  

In PLCs next week, we will be talking about Background Knowledge.  Now we all know that our kiddos all come with different levels of schema/background knowledge. We work to build background knowledge through nonfiction texts and videos.  

This is a great video from Reading Rockets discussing background knowledge!

While digging for how background knowledge supports SOR I came across The Baseball Study by Recht & Leslie.  This friends seems obvious but it in many ways it the opposite of what we have been doing in the classroom with leveling students.     

This image from the video says it all!

This study found that prior knowledge/background knowledge creates a scaffolding for information. Knowledge counts in understanding and comprehending a text.  

This post from Amplify Blog explains the study in a bit more detail. 

So we know background knowledge is important for comprehending what is being read. How do we increase it for our students?

I LOVE this blog post from We Are Teachers!  So many good ideas to help increase background knowledge through classroom lessons. 

A couple of my favorites from this post are:

#1 Connect with virtual experts: I have had sled dog mushers, bee farmers, turkey farmers, chefs and so many other guests come to my classroom to extend on our learning.  

#5 Integrate: Bring science and social studies into your reading block!  Pair your fiction books with nonfiction books to build background knowledge.  

#7 Don't Skip the Back Matter: I LOVE author studies!  It is so powerful to then transfer the author's writing style into your writing lesson.

#15 A little video goes a long way: For us this is easy with our 1:1 technology.  

Know that because you are taking the time to build background knowledge for your students, they will be able to distinguish between words with multiple meaning & infer with ease.  EL students will benefit when faced with idioms, metaphors and other literacy devices that rely on background knowledge.  

I am so excited for our discussion in PLC!