Why is it necessary for teachers to understand the difference between reading fiction and reading for information?
Almost all readers have a well-established mental schema or outline for following and holding fiction. Fiction is the primary vehicle for training children to read and the genre used most frequently in reading and language arts classes. Non-fiction, or information text, usually has very different organizational patterns from fiction. Most of the reading that students do in other subjects and in their later worklife will be non-fiction. To help students succeed in school and in their careers, they will need to know how to adjust their thinking in response to the various genre and organizational structures that writers use in presenting information. Knowing and teaching strategies to make those adjustments becomes part of the elementary and secondary teacher’s responsibility. Back to the Frequently Asked Questions Page If these materials fail to meet your needs, you may want to review the archives of the answers previously provided by the specialists at our Question and Answer Service.
