October 2004 — Web/Net
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The Software Picture Book: The Complexities of Teaching Informational Text to Elementary School Children
- A teaching component called a mini-lesson that lasted from 8-10 minutes and was usually based on HyperStudio 4.0 or the craft of effective picture-book writing.
- A workshop in which the participants worked on the project with assistance taking the form of small, flexible group instruction. The instructor carefully observed and noted both the successful and unsuccessful attempts to utilize HyperStudio. The resulting written observations always became a valuable source of ideas for mini-lesson topics.
- A sharing section where groups could share their work, accomplishments and problems.
The workshop format also served another purpose: It enabled the participants to experience firsthand the structure and effectiveness of the workshop format in learning.
Reasons for Creating Informational Picture Books
Gunning (2003) explains that most children find reading fiction easier than reading nonfiction because it contains predictable literary elements. Furthermore, he suggests that since children read more fiction than informational text, they develop an understanding and familiarity with these literary elements that they seldom do with the literary elements found in most informational text.
Routman (2000) and Parkes (2003) conclude that continued limited exposure to informational text will cause problems for most primary-grade children because the majority of their upper grade instruction will be dominated by informational texts (e.g., social studies textbooks) Therefore, they believe that there should be the direct teaching of strategies to understand and interpret informational text. Based on this perceived need, the S.A.M.E. Project was designed to help train preservice teachers to become familiar with instructional techniques to effectively teach strategies to assist children with the complexities of informational text.
Literary Elements/Structures of Informational Texts
Participants utilized the Internet to complete a Webquest and identify the structures found in informational text. Google was the search engine used to locate the information. Search results produced the following list identified by both Gunning (2003) and Hoyt and Therriault (2003):
- Enumeration-description
- Time sequence
- Explanation-process
- Comparison-contrast
- Problem-solution
- Cause-effect
In order to become more familiar with these structures, participants worked in groups and completed the following activities:
