While we all love reading fun fiction books, it is also important to read nonfiction books. Especially with young kids.
Nonfiction books help young students to further develop their literacy skills. Moreover, nonfiction texts also help prepare students for the real world by introducing them to common types of texts they will come across in all areas of their lives.
Therefore, even though nonfiction texts may not seem like the most exciting choices for reading, they are extremely beneficial to student learning. And guess what? They can also be just as fun to read as a story book!
Fly Guy Presents Sharks
One of the most engaging and fun nonfiction books we have come across is Fly Guy Presents Sharks. This book is part of a larger series of nonfiction books by Tedd Arnold
While these books are focused on teaching students about real-world topics, they are presented in the same fun way as many fiction books. This means that students are just as excited to read nonfiction books as they are to read fiction books.
Summary of Fly Guy Presents Sharks
If you are already familiar with the Fly Guy series then you may have an idea of what to expect in this book and may want to jump to the nonfiction reading lesson below. However, if you are new to the Fly Guy books, keep reading to learn more about this shark book.
Just like in the other Fly Guy books, Fly Guy Presents Sharks helps young kids explore a nonfiction topic with the help of an engaging narrator, Fly Guy. Fly Guy helps keep students engaged in reading through humor and eye-catching images.
While some nonfiction topics may need a lot of humor and images to get young readers interested, our guess is that most of your students will already be interested when you say “shark!” Just in case though, Fly Guy has plenty of funny ways to share lots of fun facts with your students. By the end of the book, they will have been introduced to 400 different kinds of sharks!
And don’t forget the full spread photos. The photos are not only to catch your readers’ attention but to also support them in learning about text features.
NonFiction Text Features
Photos and captions are just one type of text feature that you can teach your students about using Fly Guy Presents Sharks. In addition, the book uses parenthesis to feature in-text pronunciations of unfamiliar words.
Along with the pronunciation feature and photos, there are plenty of other nonfiction text features to draw on. For example, the title and author are clearly presented to help readers make connections to previous Fly Guy books.
Whether you choose to teach a few text features or go through several in detail, this nonfiction text is a great resource. Beyond teaching text features, this book is also excellent to use alongside a nonfiction read aloud.
Fly Guy Presents Sharks Read Aloud
Even though we traditionally use read aloud activities with fictional books doesn’t mean you can’t use a nonfiction text. In fact, a read aloud for a nonfiction text can be used in the same way one would be used for a fictional story.
Just like with a fictional book, a nonfiction read aloud focuses on developing comprehension. In our read aloud for Fly Guy Presents Sharks we provide a variety of text dependent learning activities to help support this type of learning.
- Comprehension questions
- Whole group response to text activities
- Note catchers (note-taking activity)
- Response to text worksheets
- Writing pages
- Vocabulary cards and worksheets
- Quiz
- Supplemental learning materials on the topic
- Craftivity template
- Self-checking digital activities on Easel by TPT
These various activities are designed to be taught over several days. Therefore, students have multiple opportunities to return to the text.
Asking students to return to the text several times reinforces the importance of having them use the text to demonstrate their understanding. Furthermore, it provides several opportunities for students to make new connections and further develop their appreciation for reading.
To support you as the teacher, all of these reading activities can easily be uploaded into Google Slides, Seesaw, or Easel on TPT. They can also be printed if you prefer to use printable worksheets.
Additional Nonfiction Reading Lessons
While Fly Guy is one of our favorite nonfiction book series to use with growing readers, it is not the only great nonfiction text. There are several wonderful books that we have found to use in teaching students about real-world topics.
Here are 10 of our other favorite nonfiction books to teach in first and second grade. To help you easily implement any of these books into your classroom, we have created complete read alouds for each one.
Penguins by Anne Schreiber
Polar Bears by Laura Marsh
Wolves by Laura Marsh
Koala by Laura Marsh
Bats by Elizabeth Carney
Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger
Weather by Kristin Baird Rattini
Halloween by Laura Marsh
Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson
Seed to Plant by Kristin Rattini
Since each of these books aligns with the core curriculum and common core areas of study we have bundled them together. Therefore, giving you everything you need to easily and effectively implement nonfiction reading lessons all year long.
Just like our Fly Guy Presents Sharks read aloud, each of these nonfiction read alouds focuses on helping student comprehension through assorted activities. Moreover, each read aloud set follows a similar structure which makes it easy for students to develop independent learning skills the more you use these read alouds.
Whether you choose to use one read aloud or one a month, any of these read alouds are perfect for teaching comprehension and nonfiction text features.
Try the Fly Guy Read Alouds Bundle to save money and teach multiple topics.
