Determining Importance

Krull, Kathleen. Supermarket

Summary- this nonfiction story book has wonderful illustrations and is a great learning tool for young children. This story is about a girl and her mother and their trip to the grocery store. The main themes of the story include how does all the food get to the shelves? How do stores keep them fresh? It talks about how all the food is stored and where. It also addresses the shipping process and how the food gets delivered to the store. In the story there is even an illustration of the food pyramid.

Strategy Connection- To help students determine importance in this nonfiction text they should notice several tools in the book that will aid them in this process. There are certain diagrams on the top and bottom of pages that discuss nutrition facts and historical information. Some of the fonts are written in different ways so this may be something that they should pay extra attention to. The book also has a whole page dedicated to the food pyramid with very good visuals. This would for sure be something that is important to the book.

Manning, Mick and Granstrom, Brita. Voices of the Rainforest

Summary- This book tells a child all they need to know about a rainforest. The story is being told by two characters that are from the rainforest. First they introduce the rainforest and what it is then they explain where rainforests can exist. The book talks about what kind of animals live in the rainforest and it explains that some people even live in the rainforest. It even illustrates amazing pictures that describes how the planets make their own food. They Amazon River is brought up along with interesting facts about how long it is and how it is the biggest river in the world! What I liked the most about the book is that in the end it talked about what fruits and supplies we use from the rainforest like brazil nuts, bananas, and pineapple. Also in the end the book dedicates two pages of crafts a child could do that relate to the many aspects of a rainforest.

Strategy Connection- In the begining of this book it has a table of contents that a child could easily use in order to find topics quicker. The different type of fonts say alot about what facts are the most important and this book does a great job of differentiating those. There are maps and excellent visuals that would help children pick out the important detials. There is also an index in the back of the book that has important words from the story in it.When there is a new topic discussed it is printed in bigger letters and this would let the child know that this was probably the imprtant theme in that topic.

Burnie, David. Endangered Planet

Summary- This book informs students how to take care of their environment. It teaches students simple ways of how they can save the environment. It is about teaching students how important our surroundings are to our life. It informs students about pollution and how to minimze it. It discusses techniques to preserving the wildlife and saving energy. It links important concepts such as population growth and growing food. It has real life visuals that aid in the understanding of the book. It teaches students good ways of recycling and the reuse of materials and how important it is for our habitat. I also like at the end how the book addresses our future and what is in store for us.

Strategy Connection- This nonfiction book is broken down into three chapters that is outlined in the begining in the table of contents. In each chapter there are diagrams that have descriptions underneath. These charts help point out the important information in each chapter. In places necessary there are maps provided to give the readers more of an idea of the place they are describing. There are arrow bullets points within the text that signal important information. In the back of the book they have a glossary that students can conviently flip to when they do not know what a word means. The book contains awesome photos of real life situations. In the back there also contains an index that will help students when trying to determine whats important.