Do you have students stuck in a rut when it comes to selecting books?
We have found that teaching students to "read across the genres" helps
with this!
Welcome to our 'Genre Shop'! To introduce genre types and read encourage kiddos to 'read across the genres,' we set up a store of labels for each genre and set out books from each genre. Here's a bit about how we teach our Genre Unit!
First, we make sure students know about and understand the different genres. The genres we study are: fiction, nonfiction, mystery, poetry, biography, and fantasy. We create an anchor chart as a class that allows students to sort pretend book covers into the different genres. This is a great opportunity to have discussions about each genre's features You can also use these genre header cards and sort real books. Maybe even books in the students' book bins!
We review the different genres, giving students plenty of opportunities to learn the features.
Next, we show the students that one topic can be read about in multiple genres. For example, you can read a book with the topic of penguins that is fiction, nonfiction, or fantasy.
Then, we give students a chance to think about what genre they like best and why. We have them prepare a "shopping list" so they can "shop" for books for the book bins. We encourage them to select books from at least 3 different genres.
Last, we ask students to shop for books. We have books organized by genre to easily allow students to select books. We have done this a couple of different ways - in book bins, on a library cart, and on classroom shelves. You can do this however it works best in your classroom! Don't have a good amount of books for each genre? No problem! We get books from the various genres from our
school library and / or the public library.
If you'd like to do any of the activities in the blog post, don't forget to grab our FREE Reading Across the Genre pack!
