The Frog Beyond the Fairy Tale Character: Searching Informational Texts

Overview

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

 

OVERVIEW

Are frogs found on every continent? Will frogs drown if they don’t find land on which to rest? How long do frogs live? Students will find out in this lesson in which they examine their prior knowledge about frogs, make predictions, and verify their predictions through research on the Internet. Students initially record their predictions about frogs on a worksheet with true and false columns. They then use the website The Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs to learn more about frogs and check their predictions. To verify their predictions, students click on the internal page links to reach a subheading. The subheading signals to the reader that this section of informational text contains evidence to support or contradict the statement.

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FEATURED RESOURCES

The Somewhat Amusing World of Frogs: A website filled with fun facts about frogs from all over the world. Students can use what they learn on this website to get a better understanding of frogs used in fiction.

 

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Yopp, R.H., & Yopp, H.K. (2000). Sharing informational text with young children. The Reading Teacher, 53(5), 410-423.

• Primary-grade students need increased exposure to nonfiction if they are to appreciate both fiction and nonfiction texts, and informational texts are to become a gateway to increased literacy activities.
  
  
• Informational texts present readers with distinctly different text structures and features than those of narrative texts. Primary-grade students must build an understanding of the conventions of informational texts and develop comprehension strategies to assist learning.
  
  
• Prediction is based upon prior knowledge about a topic; thus, future learning from informational texts is influenced by the students' knowledge of the world, which can be supplemented by reading nonfiction.

   

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