Importance of Reading Nonfiction

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“Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives. They will need literacy to cope with the flood of information they will find everywhere they turn. In a complex and sometimes even dangerous world, their ability to read will be crucial.” (IRA, 1999)

Students should be able to use language and vocabulary to read and comprehend text to support learning across all content areas. Reading nonfiction is different from reading fiction books. It is important for students to know that nonfiction books contain facts and information and a necessary skill is knowing how to navigate nonfiction books. The skills needed to navigate nonfiction are knowing the table of contents, index, glossary, diagrams, picture captions, and illustrations. Have students understand an Introduction gives insight into the content or theme, the Preface helps the reader understand why an author has written the book or how the book came to be written, and the Foreword is usually written by someone else who may be an expert about the subject. Examining the table of contents and an index first can aide a student in finding chapters that relate to their topic. Following these steps a student will read only the chapters needed and not the whole book.