Tapping the Power of Nonfiction

Book excerpt: "Nonfiction reading skills are essential to students' achievement in virtually every academic discipline. To do science, students need to read science books and articles. To study history, they need to be skilled at reading all kinds of primary and secondary documents and sources. When we help students become powerful readers of nonfiction, we help them become powerful learners. Across this unit, students will develop a solid set of nonfiction reading skills including: discerning central ideas; summarizing to create a concise version of a text;synthesizing within and across texts; building vocabulary; and reading critically to question an author's point of view and perspective. At the same time, students develop flexibility as they read across text types and transfer what they know from one type of text to the next. Throughout the unit, students learn to grow their ideas and work collaboratively around high-interest text and topics"--page 4 of cover.