This article was very enlightening. Going through the teaching program at USM, I've always known that using the frameworks and curriculum was a way to guide the topics to teach throughout the year. However, like this article said, there isn't must emphasis on teaching the students to comprehend informational text. I feel that it is definitely a good idea to incorporate informational text into early elementary grades so that the students will learn to read expository text while learning to read. Having the students be familiar with how to decipher informational text helps set foundations for better state and national testing where information text is utilized.
This is also the first time I've heard of idea circles being utilized as a strategy to enhance student learning regarding informational text. I think it was a good idea to have the students work together to answer the questions after reading the informational text because it helps the students to feed off of each other information one student may have gotten but another may have not.
Questions:
With grades K-3 having so much in their curriculum, when do we find the time to actually incorporate informational text?
Is there informational text and books for children's K-1 to read in order to begin comprehension?
