Why Non-fiction?

Traditionally, non-fiction has often played second fiddle to fiction in reading provision at school, in terms of quantity and quality. Nevertheless, it encompasses such a mountainous range of genres which the internet has only helped to enhance. Under this umbrella-term hang books about: alternative history, travel, cooking, military strategy, memoirs, collections of letters and diary entries, film criticism, magazine articles, sports annuals to name but a few. Non-fiction texts are maps, woven into our daily lives, that help us navigate reality.

We want children to be able to enjoy this array of media and genres. And as government restrictions become part of our national landscape, children need to be adept at steering through these rich worlds of information from home or at school. 

Non-fiction not only opens new worlds for children but opens them to new ways of reading which fiction does not. Non-fiction texts do not have to be read from front to back but are designed to be picked through and explored. Children learn to follow their curiosity and burrow through a topic rather than chronologically following events as they’re told. They also employ different reading skills including scanning, prioritising information, deciphering diagrams and summarising.

Furthermore, they learn how knowledge becomes knowledge and how a fact is a fact. In history, how historians reach conclusions and in science, how scientists reach conclusions. This creates the scaffolds toward becoming a critical reader; an important skill needed in an age with an overabundance of news sources. Children will begin to critically engage with reality and see how past achievements and discoveries have taken us all to this moment. Questions like these will become part of their study: how does the author actually know this statement to be the case? What is a reliable/unreliable source? Is this a fact or is it opinion? Is this statement supported by the evidence?

Children are exposed to technical, tier-three vocabulary when reading nonfiction. They learn strategies on how to assimilate these subject-specific words, quickly building new mental schemas of the world as a result. They gain experience of more technical and potentially more formal sentence structures such as the passive voice and nominalisation (two skills outlined by STA in the greater depth guidance for year 6). They may not be able to necessarily identify them as such when reading, but exposure builds fluency.

As Book Trust points out, nonfiction books can also “tempt a reluctant reader into sitting down with a book.” There is always a topic that is of interest to every child and researching this can be a great access point into reading.

We are living in exciting times for children’s nonfiction books. Many recently published books have sought to display information in new and exciting ways that feel modern, vibrant and representative. At the Literacy Tree we have been staying abreast of these publications and designing new Literary Leaves (comprehension lessons) around some choice titles. Gorgeous texts like A Book of Bears by Katie Viggers, Incredible Journeys by Levison Wood and Mythologica by Stephen P. Kershaw and Victoria Topping have particularly excited us and will appeal to different age groups. 

Please download our Literary Leaves overview to see our offer of nonfiction texts in full.  We have included a range of texts for every year in the Literary Curriculum which we know will facilitate the teaching of comprehension as well as being thoroughly enjoyable!

Posted in: Book Lists | Curriculum