They are also underrated in that realm. They are part of the 800's and can be a great way to get younger students into the Dewey Decimal. In fact, the one series I find to be popular with 1st-5th grade is Michael Dahl's Read-It! Joke Books. I have my 5th graders reading me jokes out of that book every couple of checkout days. It never seems to matter to my kids how easy a book looks if it is funny. You can get a preview of the books here.
Joke books are also a good way to teach partner work, fluency, and giving students think time. When I was teaching the 3rd grade about the 818 section, I modeled reading aloud jokes and asking for students to guess what the answer could be. This provided them with a safe environment to not have the correct answer because almost the whole class wanted to guess. I then asked them to read jokes aloud to each other and they would wait for their classmates to come up with an answer if no answer was guessed right away.
Before any more time passes and this author study escapes my mind, I wanted to let you know how much my 3rd and 4th graders liked studying Steve Jenkins. I really wanted to encourage nonfiction reading and one of the best authors currently writing is Steve Jenkins. Simply put, he is pure awesomeness for science related nonfiction. I'm going to explain more about Jenkins and his writing style by letting you know what I learned along with my students (and subsequently charted):
Gets most of his ideas for his books from his own children asking questions.
Uses cut-paper collage as illustrations.
Topics mainly focus on science.
Worked on a book with his father.
Works with his wife on books.
Writes introductions to begin all of his books.
Jenkins books are at many different reading levels from grades K-5--several of his books contain two levels of writing.
I wanted to find a unique way to present information about Jenkins, so I searched for a Prezi on Steve Jenkins and found this one:
My students aren't constantly exposed to the format of Prezis, so it catches their attention in that way. I had my students select a Jenkins book and answer questions about the book. The questions asked were about the main topic of the book, their favorite illustration and what it was, three amazing facts they learned, etc. The focus for individual students was just on one book and then they presented their information to the class, so we could collect information on multiple books. My students really pined for Bones, Actual Size, Move!, What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, and Biggest, Strongest, Fastest. Prezi courtesy of Lisa Klingesmith: photo credit Nasa / Goddard Space Flight Center / Reto Stöckli Author Study/prezi.com
I am not a football fan. But, my boys in K-5 enjoy reading about football, so I seek out books for them. I was excited when I came across Sports Illustrated Rookie Series that feature football books on ABC's, opposites, and colors. I knew instantly from the covers that my kindergarten and 1st grade boys would LOVE them! (Yes, I judged the books by their covers...so sue me!)
The books are very well conceived for young readers. They have full page photographs that represent the concept being referenced, the concept words are in bold colored print, and boxed-in text (easier to read). The majority of text is only 2-3 simple sentences per page which makes it a good choice for readers who've progressed past phonics books. Since the concept words are in larger bold stand alone text, it works for beginning readers, too.
My students have really enjoyed these titles and I even have my older students checking them out.
I’m finally getting around to writing about the last part for the Presentation blog series.These last few titles I would like to introduce range from grade levels K-6 and cover expository and narrative nonfiction.
Arggh!Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.This new book, Pirates by Joanne Mattern (grades 4-6), is a great blended text that is in a graphic novel format.I love that the cover bears a female pirate—what a great discussion starter.The book is formatted so the speech bubbles have different shapes and shading to help children tell the difference between the history and the fictional story presented.I’ve included this book in several of my presentations because I think it represents a growing trend in nonfiction graphic literature.
When I think mummies, right away, I think Ancient Egypt (ok, I confess, I think The Mummy movies too).If you think your child will probably make the same connections, than introduce him/her to this book.It talks about mummies found throughout the world—even a Buddhist priest who was a self-made mummy!Unraveling The History Of Mummies Around The World by Sylvia Branzei is a good early chapter book for grades 1-3, especially to get children into reading nonfiction.This book may not have photographs, but the illustrations are just cool enough for a younger audience to make up for that.
If Nic Bishop can photograph an animal, you can be sure it’s an incredible shot.He’s already brought us frogs, spiders, butterflies and moths—now he brings us into the world of a type of animal where the ones I (I was going to use the pronoun “we,” but I didn’t want to make assumptions) really only know are the kangaroo and koala—the marsupial.I like how Nic Bishop Marsupials (grades 1-4) not only covers the basics—from an animal’s habitat, eating habits, and family—but he includes unique facts.For example, a koalas pouch is reversed, so when the baby peeks out they are upside down—you want to know why?Read the book to find out!
And to round this week off, I want to include a book from a series called Raptors.The one I talked about was entitled Owls by Julie Lundgren (grades 1-3).The books are very nice—photographs, text features that include caption boxes, bolded vocabulary, glossary, and simple paragraphs that won’t overwhelm younger readers.My mom plans on using the one about eagles with her first graders--she finds the idea of the eagle’s nest very helpful for circle time (that is her school’s mascot).
Bishop, N. (2009). Nic bishop marsupials. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Branzei, S. (2009). Unraveling the history of mummies around the world. New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap.
Lundgren, J. (2010). Owls. Vero Beach, FL.: Rourke Publishing.
Mattern, J. (2010). Pirates. Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Publishing.
