f. Non-fiction text
Although the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction are not always clear, much of the reading children are expected to do in school involves non-fiction texts, as they seek information for a variety of purposes. Children and student teachers need help in tackling non-fiction texts, often in the form of specific reading skills.
The pleasure of reading non-fiction should not be underestimated. Student teachers should read aloud from information books alongside stories and poems. Early Years children have a real thirst to find out about and make meaning of their lives. The multimodal nature of many contemporary information texts matches children’s experience of interactive digital technology, and can feed into their writing and drawing.
Much of children’s early experience with print begins with non-fiction. For example, the writing or the logo on their t-shirt, the information on the tube of toothpaste, the print on the cereal packet or the barrage of information when they visit the supermarket. All of this is in a range of fonts and size. Not all children will realise the significance of ‘Way Out’, ‘No Exit’ or ‘’’For Sale’ and yet they are a part of daily life.
Children also see adults reading newspapers, magazines, forms and lists. Many of these experiences are incidental and certainly not exploited for their learning potential; nevertheless they are part of a child’s life and provide concrete experiences to which the child can relate. Student teachers need to be alert to the range of environmental print with which we are surrounded and to recognise that even very young children enjoy non-fiction as well as fiction.
But the language of non-fiction is often more complex than fiction. It is more formal and makes use of passive verb forms and specific technical terms. It may be ordered non-chronologically. The more complex and unfamiliar syntax of non-fiction needs to be explored. Specific work on non-fiction and the range of genres involved are highlighted by the Ofsted report Reading for Purpose and Pleasure (2004). We find it is useful to work with student teachers using non-fiction texts so that they can begin to identify the genres, and other stylistic features that typify non-fiction texts.
Some research has suggested that boys are more attracted to reading non-fiction than they are to fiction, but recent work has suggested that boys are equally interested in narratives. It is worth asking your student teachers to look at recent picture books, both fiction and non-fiction, published for Early Years readers and consider how these stories might attract different genders. They could also be advised to look at more recent research on boys and girls and literacy such as Gemma Moss’ work, ‘Boys and Literacy: Gendering the Reading Curriculum’ (1999), and Trish Maynard’s, Boys and Literacy: Exploring the Issues (2002).
See also 7c. Non-fiction writing
 
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