The Missouri Reader Vol. 36, Issue 2 | Page 8

GIVE THEM THE WORLD: BENEFITS OF INTEGRATING
NONFICTION IN EARLY ELEMENTARY
Jamie Davis
hen early elementary teachers
consider the books they will use in their classrooms,
what aspects of those books do they deem to be the
most important? Content, entertainment factor,
readability, relevance to current topics, how they
relate to benchmark testing, and genre are all
considerations. While each of these aspects is valuable
in its own way, the genre of the books that teachers
choose to use in their classrooms is becoming
increasingly important. In today’s technological age,
students are required to process large amounts of
information while being discriminatory at the same
time. A large percentage of the information that
students come into contact with in and outside of
school is nonfiction (Harvey, 1998).
In the past, nonfiction was thought to be
inappropriate for students in early elementary
(Bortnem, 2008; Duke, 2000; Duke & Kays, 1998;
Palmer & Stewart, 2003). Educators believed that the
ability to comprehend and assimilate factual material
was beyond students’ capabilities until the fourth
grade or beyond. The belief that narrative text is
easier to understand resulted in a curriculum laden
with narrative books (Palmer & Stewart, 2003). In
their study, Duke and Kays (1998) explored what
kindergarten children know about the language of
expository texts. They analyzed students in one
kindergarten classroom as they interacted with
information books at the beginning of the school year
and again three months later. They observed students’
readings at the end of the three months to be “more
reflective of information book language” (p. 312).
This study indicates that not only are students in the
early elementary grades “capable of interacting with
expository text, but actually enjoy these interactions”
(p. 314). In her review of current research on using
nonfiction in early elementary

classrooms,
Bortnem states,
“Use of
informational or
nonfiction text is
developmentally
appropriate in the
early childhood
classrooms” (p.
33).
A common misconception about nonfiction
literature is that students, particularly younger ones,
do not enjoy reading nonfiction materials. If one were
to observe in a first grade classroom, like the one
described in the study by Palmer and Stewart (2003),
it would be obvious that nonfiction is popular because
they found that 63% of the self- selected books were
nonfiction titles. In considering whether young
students enjoy nonfiction books, Duke (2003) states,
“children often select nonfiction, informational texts
Jamie Davis is a reading instructor at Ozarks
Technical Community College in Springfield, MO.
She received her bachelor’s degree in Elementary
Education and her master’s degree in Reading,
with special reading certification, both from
Missouri State University. Jamie previously
taught second grade at Robberson Elementary in
Springfield, MO. She resides in Springfield with
her husband Joe and their two girls, Maggie and
Mya and they all share a passion for reading.
when given a choice” (p. 2). Nonfiction can provide a
way into literacy in ways that fiction cannot and
motivates younger students (Moss, 2003). Yopp and
Yopp (2000) state that “Informational texts can
©The Missouri Reader, 36 (2) p. 7