Non-Fiction Book Read Aloud and Student Activity Reflection

The non-fiction book that I read to my 1st grade class was called “Seed to Plant,” a story
by National Geographic Kids that taught all about seeds and plants. It had different sections that
talked about the parts of a plant, what a plant needs to grow, how pollen/seeds get spread, and
more. Given that we started our science unit on plants near the end of last week, I figured that it
was a great, topical book to read to the students. Because we had already briefly talked about
this subject, I was able to use the students’ background knowledge a lot during the reading. The
week prior, I actually made a pictorial input chart with the students about the parts of a plant, so
I was able to refer to that a lot during the reading.
Before even reading the book, I asked the students to raise their hand if they thought the
book was a fictional book. Only a couple of students raised their hands, so then I asked them to
raise their hands if they thought it was a non-fiction book. Almost all of the students raised their
hands that time, so then I called on a few students to explain why they knew it was a non-fiction
book. Most of their answers were great, with them saying the real pictures on the front and the
fact that it was from “National Geographic Kids” made them realize it was non-fiction. I asked
this question to bring up the idea of things that we should look for when looking at a book to
know whether it is fiction or non-fiction. At the very start, I addressed the table of contents,
mentioning what it was and what it told us about the book. Then, as I read the first few parts, I
referred back to the table of contents to make comments such as, “oh, look, we just read this
first part, called (section title), now we’re going to read the next section called (section title),”
while pointing at their positions on the table of contents. I did this to familiarize students with
what components a non-fiction book has, so they know the importance and function of these
different components.
Another strategy I used while reading the book was consistently referencing the previous
lessons we had that briefly went over certain things in the book, so they had background
knowledge to expand on. For example, we did a STEM experiment just last week that
addressed the question: why don’t trees blow down in the wind? This introduced the idea of how
roots are important at stabilizing the trees, and we demonstrated this by using our bodies as if
they were being blown in the wind (and how we don’t tip over). This same idea of relating our
bodies to the parts of a tree/plant was used in the book, so I referenced back to our STEM
experiment to further connect the function of each part of a plant (the roots are like our feet, the
stem is like our body, our arms are like the leaves). As previously mentioned, I also referred a lot
to a pictorial input chart that I did with the students last week, which was positioned right on the
board for easy reference. Being able to connect the reading with these different things (the
experiment, the chart) were very helpful at making more sense of our book.
For the activity, I created a cause and effect graphic organizer for the students to fill out.
The causes were all already provided on the chart for them, so they had the job of filling in the
effects as related to plants. This required them to think about everything we had gone over, in
terms of what plants need to survive, and how they react to the environment around them. The
first three causes and effects I did with the students, but with their help. I asked them what they
thought and called on a few students to share their ideas. Their ideas were all pretty similar (and
correct), so I wrote down sentences that corresponded with their answers. The last two causes,
however, I had the students do on their own. First, I posed the question in different ways, “how
does the plant use the sun?” / “what do the leaves use the sunlight for?” / “what is an effect the
sun has on the plant?” After giving them some think time, I had a few students share their ideas,
which were all quite basic with, “it helps the plant grow,” so I pushed their thinking a little deeper
by getting them to think about how it helps the plant grow. Eventually, we got to the answer that
the leaves make food with sunlight, so I wrote a sentence down for that. For the very last
question, I went through the same process, and had them once again share out their ideas
which I expanded upon. Overall, the students did great with this activity and reading and I was
very pleased to see that it could be connected to our previous learning, but extended a little
more.

Student samples below.

Student Samples: