This is a guest blog post by Dr. Geraldine Haggard, who   is a retired teacher, Reading Recovery teacher leader, author, and university teacher.   It is the second post in a series about using guided reading activities to support content-area textbook reading. To read the first post, click here.

SOCIAL STUDIES READING SUPPORT

The same procedures used for teaching   Fantastic Frogs   can be used to teach higher-level books like   Benjamin Franklin   from the   Hameray Biography Series . The biography is a longer book, and thus contains more informational text tools: 

• The TABLE OF CONTENTS includes chapter titles. Discuss the meaning of a chapter.
• Invite students to go to page 38 for the LEARN MORE section. A list of books and websites encourage students to do more reading about Benjamin Franklin.
• Use CHAPTER 1 for guided reading. Discuss the picture on page 4:   Why is Franklin hungry? Who is the young woman?
• Ask the students to read with you in a guided reading setting. After reading, discuss the answers to the two questions.
• Ask the students if there are any unfamiliar words in the chapter. Invite the students to find the bolded words in the glossary and use the words to create their own sentences.
• What happens in a print shop? What is a document? Can you think of an example of a document?

THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT TEXTBOOK READING

• Remind the students about the various informational text features that can help them read the text.
• Emphasize the importance of pictures and their own prior knowledge to supplement their reading.
• Encourage rereading and making a note of questions. Using graphic organizers allow the students to write what they already knew, what they need to learn, and questions still left unanswered by the text.
• Ask children to do further reading on the content area topic.

Using parts of content area books for guided and shared reading will help students both in content area subjects and language arts. Don’t forget to frequently use the new vocabulary in your classroom!

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Geraldine Haggard is the author of several books from our  Kaleidoscope Collection . She spent 37 years in the Plano, TX school system. She currently tutors, chairs a committee that gifts books to low-income students, teaches in her church, and serves as a facilitator in a program for grieving children.  

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Click the image below to download a FREE Teacher's Guide for Benjamin Franklin.