Information book read-alouds as models for second-grade authors

Bradley, Linda Golson, & Donovan, Carol A. (2010). Information book read-alouds as models for second-grade authors. The Reading Teacher, 64(4), 246-260.

Two very important conclusions can be drawn from reading this rich account of how second graders learned to read and write informational text:

1. With the right instruction, young children can learn about the information book genre, and can then write information books of their own that incorporate many of the elements and features that the authors of children’s information books include.


2. Content area instruction (in this case, science instruction) can be integrated seamlessly and meaningfully in a primary grade classroom.

The first author served as a “special science teacher” during a three-week unit on weather. She demonstrated how to use read-alouds of high-quality children’s information books as springboards to discuss the basic elements and features of informational texts and the decisions that authors use when writing such texts. The work of two prolific and noted children’s nonfiction authors, Gail Gibbons and Seymour Simon, is spotlighted. Teachers who have used these authors’ books in their classrooms know that one cannot go wrong with these two authors’ works. The study, which is rich with examples, shares how these exemplary information books served as “mentor texts” and helped these second graders reach fairly sophisticated levels as they created their own information books that included many of the same elements and features found in the texts by Gibbons and Simon. Information books written by the children “before” and “after” the intervention, which consisted of simple discussions of information book elements and features during read-alouds, are presented and show the children’s growth.

Besides the many examples, the article provides a very clear outline of the weather/writing unit, which will help teachers visualize how similar instruction might play out in the classroom. The article also includes other helpful features, including a set of questions to ponder and reflect on (which would be good for a teacher study group on informational text) and references to related resources in IRA journals and on the marvelous readwritethink.org web site. I love the clarity and specificity of this article, and the way high-quality work was expected of young children who then met those expectations. The power of mentor texts to foster high-quality writing is underscored. Lucy Calkins, Katie Wood Ray, and Donald Graves (others who have written about the use of mentor texts with young children) would be in complete agreement with all we read in this article.