While PK1 students had so far mainly checked out fiction picture books, I began adding nonfiction titles to their pre-selections a couple of weeks ago. There was immediate interest, especially among the boys, who were eager on exploring National Geographic Kids books on planes, trucks and all kinds of animals. Then, in the week leading up to Spring break, I introduced the paired reading of a fiction and a nonfiction book.

Our first two titles were Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar and a National Geographic Kids’ book on caterpillars and butterflies. After reading both books, we explored what was the same (both books are about caterpillars) and what was different (one book has real pictures, the other book has drawings). At this point, it was still challenging for students to tell which book they would choose if they wanted to learn about caterpillars and which one they would choose if they wanted to hear a story. However, as we read and explored another fiction/nonfiction pair of books after the break (a Froggy book and a National Geographic Kids book on frogs) many students immediately pointed to the nonfiction book when I asked which book they would choose if they wanted to learn more about frogs. That was very exciting to notice!

We will continue with this reading of paired fiction/nonfiction titles over the next weeks, to eventually identify some basic characteristics of fiction and nonfiction books. While knowing about the difference between fiction and nonfiction materials is one of the information literacy skills we are aiming at, the reading of animal books also supports PK1’s current unit of inquiry under the transdisciplinary theme Sharing Our Planet with a focus on living things.