I think that studies show that there’s very little nonfiction read aloud happening at school and probably not at home either, but there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t. I think the strategies might be a little bit different in some cases. I think if you’re working with a large group of kids, there’s often a lot of things happening on the page of a nonfiction book. And so something like a document camera might be helpful.
It might also help to have some props that are helping to build background information before you read and introducing some of those vocabulary words that we were talking about before, if necessary.
Also, I think one really important thing to realize is that you don’t need to read the entire book. So for example, if you’re reading a browsable book, there’s no reason that you can’t just read one page or two pages.
You can also sort of sneak in nonfiction, read alouds. Let’s say you have a few extra minutes as the class is lining up for recess or lunch. You can read one spread there, and it’s an opportunity to show that you honor nonfiction, that you want to bring it in to your classroom, but you’re not taking away from any instruction time. And also you can read books that are related to whatever you might be discussing in science or in social studies. And there are so many different great topics that you can find in nonfiction. So I really hope that people will start doing that more.
