•    historical fiction - realistic stories that are set in the past; the facts are
     accurate but the characters are fictional (although they sometimes interact
     with actual historical figures)
                examples:    Early Thunder by Jean Fritz
                                    Mississippi Bridge by Mildred Taylor
                                    The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
 
     •    biographies - similar to historical fiction except that they are based on
     historical facts that can be documented; rather than focusing on fictional
     characters, however, biographies are carefully researched accounts of the
     lives of real people

     •    folk literature - fables, myths, legends, folktales (a.k.a. folklore)

 examples: Cinderella myths around the world
 

France/US	Cinderella (Bradbury, 1973)
China	Yeh-Shen (Philomel, 1982)
Africa	Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Lothrop, 1987)
Egypt	Egyptian Cinderella (Crowell, 1989)
Germany	Princess Furball (Greenwillow, 1989)
Russia	Vasilissa the Beautiful (HarperCollins, 1991)
Village by the shores of Lake            Ontario	The Rough-Face Girl (Putnam, 1992)

 
or, a male Cinderella story: Bubba, the Cowboy Prince: A Fractured Texas Tale by Helen Ketteman (Scholastic, 1997)

  Some trade book resources:

National Council for the Social Studies -- http://www.ncss.org

Children's Book Council -- http://www.CBCbooks.org

Children's Literature: Beyond Basals -- http://www.beyondbasals.com/index.html

Reading Rainbow, Newberry Awards, Caldecott Awards, Coretta Scott King Awards, and School Library Journals Best Books -- http://www.associatedlibraries.com/setindex.htm

 
Steps in directed Reading-Thinking
1. Prereading
2. Reading
3. Postreading

Prereading elements
1. Vocabulary development
2. Concept attachment
3. Prediction

Vocabulary development (Combs, 1996)
     •    preteach only those words that are critical to the understanding of the
             material
     •    preteach critical words that cannot be understood in the context of the
             material
     •    preteach words that the children will not be able to independently decode

Concept attachment - students must be able to attach their past experiences to
    the author’s ideas
     •    provide direct experiences - for example, if the story is about coal mining
             bring to class a few lumps of coal, a bandanna, miner’s helmet, etc.
     •    offer vicarious experiences - if the ‘real’ thing isn’t available bring in some
             depiction of the real thing (model, photo, transparency, slide, etc.)
     •    charting - help students associate what they already know about a topic with
             new content
          ex: K-W-L chart (what students know before reading; what they want to
             know about the topic; what they actually learn from the reading)

Prediction - encourage students to forecast what new ideas the reading will hold
    for them
Predictive Strategies (Hennings, 1990)

Early Elementary

1. Read title; study cover; look at pictures
 Predict:  What is this going to be about?
                What do you already know about the topic?

2. Look at the way the words are put on paper and how lines are organized
 Predict:  Is it a story?
   Is it a poem?
   Is it about facts?

3. Set purpose: What do you want to get out of this?
 Fun? Facts? Feelings?

4. Decide: How you should read - fast or carefully

Upper Elementary

1. Read title; study cover, pictures, charts, graphs and tables; Scan passage and
     read any words in italics and bold
          Read headings and subheadings (if any); Scan 1st paragraph and last
 Predict:  What is this going to be about?
                What do you already know about this topic and this form of writing?
                 Do you need to get more information from another source before you begin?

2. Decide: what kind of piece is this - story? poem? factual article? very detailed
     information piece? humorous piece?

3. Decide: how is selection organized? is there an introductory part? a summary
     section at the end?  study questions at the beginning or end? What kind of
     material is up front?  at the end?
     How are the headings and subheadings laid out on the paper?  Will the
     graphics be useful to you?  How?

4. Decide: what do you want to get out of this? Fun? Fantasy? Feelings? Facts?

5. Decide: how shall you read this?  Just skim for big ideas? Read fast?  Read for
     details?  Take notes?

 Reading: (Tompkins & Hoskisson, 1995)

     1.   Reading aloud - students listen as someone else reads aloud

     2.   Shared reading - students follow along in their own copies as teachers reads
     aloud or as the class reads together

     3.   Buddy reading - two students read together; they may takes turns reading
     aloud or both read silently; this process is especially recommended for
     students who are not fluent readers

     4.   Guided reading - students read silently to address the stated purpose of
     reading or to confirm or reject predictions

     5.   Independent reading - students read independently; this could be the same
     book or multiple texts on the same topic; there is little formal direction
     from the teacher

Other reading-to-learn strategies:

SQ3R strategy (Robinson, 1970)

     1.   Survey - students skim material quickly paying attention to major headings,
     subheadings, illustrations, charts & graphs, questions posed by the author,
     and the first and last paragraphs

     2.   Question - turning the survey information into questions the reader wants to
     answer; readers set their own purposes for reading

     3.   Read - student reads using individual purpose to guide the reading

     4.   Recite - students attempt to recite from memory the material that helps
     satisfy the purposes established for reading

     5.   Review - students refer back to the book to review the content and verify if
     they answered their questions accurately

Postreading:
Asking questions
Retelling

Asking questions:
literal - asks for information directly from the material; students need to
contribute little complex thinking

inferential - asks for information no explicitly stated in the material; students
must combine their own background knowledge with literal meaning to respond

critical - asks students to make personal judgments about the material

closed - those questions that expect predictable or correct responses from the
point of view of the questioner

open - ask for opinions or feelings; there is no single correct answer

Retelling: students share their understanding of the author’s meaning

     1.   Dramatic retelling - student pretend to be a character they have read about
     and playact important parts of the character’s life

     2.   Illustration retelling - students retell important events by explaining the
     significance of the photographs and illustrations

     3.   Story map recalling - students illustrate a visual arrangement of the events
     in the reading; story maps can be written or drawn and should show the main
     parts of the selection

     4.   Artistic retelling - drawing is good for young children because it slows down
     their thinking and allows them time to recall details and organize ideas
     (Combs, 1996); students draw an illustration of a major idea from the
     reading

     5.   Written retelling - individuals or small groups of students record their
     retellings in journals or learning logs
 

RESOURCES:

Combs, M. (1996).  Developing competent readers and writers in the primary
     grades.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Hennings, D.G. (1990).  Communication in action. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Robinson, H.A. (1970).  Effective study. New York: Harper & Row.

Tompkins, G.E., & Hoskisson, K.  (1995).  Language arts: Content and teaching
     strategies.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.