Teaching Nonfiction Text Structures with Frogs!

Do you know a kid who isn’t interested in frogs? I honestly do not think I’ve met one, and what better way to draw a child into a tough lesson than with a book you KNOW they will love. Frogs! by National Geographic has the most amazing photos, and it’s perfect for modeling nonfiction text structures.

In order to help students process nonfiction text, teachers can use think aloud to model how we pay attention to key features in nonfiction. Tanny McGregor in Genre Connections recommends launching nonfiction text studies with a concrete object. She used a plant seed package, and the teacher models how we look at the picture of the plant, the name, and the plant requirements lists on the package. As we look at the package, the plant may trigger memories of times we’ve seen the plant or even eaten the plant’s produce. Other concrete objects I thought of was a box of cereal or food, a paint can, or board game.

National Geographic nonfiction books are some of my favorites. They have the BEST nonfiction options for so many topics kids just love. This books has all the nonfiction text features you want kids to see-excellent pictures, captions, sidebars, headings and subheadings, charts, diagrams, and maps. There are so many different types of frogs shown in this book, and the children. I’ve used this title with have just been amazed by the new information they’ve learned. Many chose to find other Frog books at the library after too. 🙂

Just take a look at some of the pictures, and you’ll probably agree. My favorite is the picture of the Goliath frog which is the size of a rabbit! Here are a few just to give you an idea how the book is organized and what the pictures look like.

To build excitement prior to reading, teachers might show this Youtube video from National Geographic. I think the pictures are just amazing, and I know my kids would love them.