Get Real!
By Alvin Granowsky, Ed.D

At long last, the word is spreading that content area readers/informational books can be used in beginning reading programs to support both literacy development and the learning of national standards-based content. When I've made recent visits to primary classrooms, I've observed a far greater number of informational books used in the beginning reading program – and that's great!

Benefits from using content area readers/informational books with young readers:

1. Certain children, often boys, are far more excited by content such as reptiles, mammals and faraway people and places found in informational books rather than by narrative tales. I've found that kids reach out for "real-life" books such as these, their eyes wide with excitement over the photos and the information to be gained.
2. Informational books can help youngsters learn basic vocabulary and concepts that will serve as a foundation for subsequent growth in content areas.
3. As research indicates, children need and benefit from instruction in the special features of informational books/content area readers. This is a terrific way to teach your students about the table of contents, index, glossary, boldface headings and captions.
4. Using informational books in a guided reading program for the primary grades may help students overcome the "fourth grade slump" later on. This slump may reflect the shift in instructional focus from storybooks to textbooks. The shift can leave some kids with a lack of comfort and skill in dealing with informational text features along with insufficient background knowledge upon which to build.

A tall order. As you know, each of your students is very different, not only in what they come to your classroom knowing, but also in their individuality as learners. The challenge for you is to get to know the students as individuals, as well as each child's level of reading skill, familiarity with structures and features of informational text, and prior knowledge of key vocabulary and concepts. That's quite a tall order!

While a one-size-fits-all instructional program will destine some children to failure, a teacher who attempts to individualize the instructional program to meet the unique needs of all his or her very different students may become easily overwhelmed. Fortunately, newly-published instructional materials now available from a number of publishers will enable you to implement a manageable guided reading program using informational books/content area readers based on national standards content.

The problem is that many teachers are not aware that such programs exist. You may be attempting to go it alone in selecting appropriate informational books for your classroom program and in the process, stretching yourself to the breaking point in meeting children's unique learning needs and styles.

Getting the material. I've found that some primary level teachers, although they have informational books in their classrooms, are not really using these texts to help their students build reading skills and learn important concepts and vocabulary in basic subject areas of science, social studies, health and mathematics.

Primary grade teachers need to know that carefully-developed content area reading programs are now available from many publishers. Using these programs can save you countless hours in meeting individual students' reading and learning needs in the basic subject areas.

Finding the new content area reading programs may at first seem daunting to a busy teacher. New products can be found at exhibits at educational conferences, in school district or area service centers displaying new products, in advertisements in educational publications, via publisher's catalogs or on publisher websites. In addition, sales representatives for publishing companies are often more than happy to bring product samples to schools for teachers to review.

Greater use of informational books/content area readers in primary classrooms offers many learning benefits. The important thing is to make time to observe the many fine programs in content area reading that are now available. From there, it should be easy to select those readers that will bring the most benefit to your students in a guided reading program.

Alvin Granowsky, an author of texts and readers used in schools throughout the nation, is a former Director of Reading and Language Arts for the public schools of Dallas, TX and Greensboro, NC.