Reading ability is the foundation and core of learning ability. Especially for children above grade three, reading ability directly affects their academic performance, because it is not just Chinese, but almost every subject they learn depends on reading foundation.
Paying attention to the cultivation of children's reading ability has long been the knowledge of parents. From the beginning of prenatal education, children have been reading picture books, and the whole infancy attaches great importance to parent-child reading. However, after primary school, there are still many children who can't cope with Chinese reading comprehension, math application problems can't understand, and they can't understand.
Read a lot of books, but children's reading ability has not improved? One of the important reasons is that in children's reading, parents ignore the more practical "non-fiction reading".
Fiction and non-fiction are the main classification methods in Europe and America.
Fictional reading materials can be understood as non-existent and unreal contents in real life, which are created by imagination. On the contrary, works based on reality are non-fiction books.
Non-fiction books suitable for children are not completely equivalent to all kinds of popular science picture books. Non-fiction reading is a fairly broad category, and books such as history, geography, biography, business, art and tourism that are common in libraries belong to non-fiction reading.
Compared with fictional books, non-fictional books have a wider range of knowledge, but they are also relatively boring and obscure. Therefore, when children are very young, most parents will choose relaxed and happy fictional picture books as their first reading materials. Those wild fairy tales and adventure stories have greatly expanded children's imagination and made them interested in reading.
For most parents, no matter in their daily reading or when choosing reading materials for their children, they are rarely classified according to "fiction" and "non-fiction". Therefore, a large number of fictional books occupy the children's reading list, while those non-fictional books about nature, science, humanities, society and history based on reality rarely or even do not appear in the children's reading list.
In the cultivation of reading ability, "novel" and "non-fiction" reading are indispensable, and the proportion of non-fiction reading will increase with the growth of children's age and understanding ability. However, even in Europe and America, children's reading is still dominated by non-fiction reading, which has a serious "nutritional imbalance".
Not long ago, Renaissance, an authoritative evaluation company in the global reading field, released the 2020 K- 12 student reading report "What are children reading". This reading data covers 165438+ 10,000 students in more than 5,300 schools. The data shows that children's reading of fictional topics is three times that of non-fictional topics.
Compared with fictional books, non-fictional books may not have fascinating plots and ups and downs of story lines. Children need to gain knowledge from it, understand and master the information behind the text, and think while reading. Especially for children with poor comprehension and reading ability, non-fiction books will be more difficult to read.
"Non-fiction reading" is the "watershed" of children's reading ability!
By reading non-fiction books, children can not only broaden their knowledge structure, accurately obtain the information they need, improve their ability to understand complex texts, but also more truly recognize the world in which they live. Lack of non-fiction reading ability will directly affect children's reading ability, and then affect their learning ability.
Therefore, experts at home and abroad suggest that children should be exposed to non-fiction reading content as soon as possible to improve their non-fiction reading ability. The United States even revised the syllabus, requiring that by the end of the fourth grade, children's non-fiction reading should be promoted to half. By the end of senior high school, 25% of students' reading plans are fictional reading materials, and the remaining 75% are non-fictional reading materials, covering all subjects.
As mentioned above, children should be exposed to non-fiction reading as soon as possible, that is to say, children of every age should have non-fiction reading on their books. From infancy, let non-fiction books appear on children's reading lists. This will not only enrich children's reading themes, but also enable children to obtain "balanced nutrition" through reading, and also enable children to develop the habit of reading non-fiction books from an early age.
I see the truth. How do younger babies choose non-fiction books? Can't let the baby under one year old watch DK encyclopedia series! Previously, Tuan Ma also mentioned that non-fiction reading is a broad concept. For a few-month-old baby, black and white cards and colored cards with fruits, colors, animals and traffic are the most suitable non-fiction reading enlightenment books for them.
Babies over one year old can choose some non-fiction books about animal and plant cognition. For example, DK books with big eyes and big holes let children learn the names of different animals and vehicles and the sounds they make.
With the growth of children's age and cognitive ability, parents can choose some non-fiction books with simple plots when they are two or three years old. Three years old is a very important period for children's language and vocabulary development. Through non-fiction reading, children can learn new vocabulary and exercise their logical ability. When children are four or five years old, in non-fiction reading, parents can try to help their children understand what is fiction and what is non-fiction, and try to exercise their abilities of "information screening" and "source judgment".
Whether adults or children, we are always more inclined to choose books that interest us, or books that are relatively easy and interesting for us to read. Therefore, it is not a big deal for children to resist non-fiction books. It is early to cultivate children's interest in non-fiction reading. When a child is exposed to non-fiction reading since childhood and has accumulated relevant reading experience and knowledge, he will naturally not be afraid of non-fiction reading.
If children don't pay attention to non-fiction reading when they are young, parents can guide them from their interests. For example, most children aged five or six are interested in dinosaurs, oceans and space, and DK children's series is a good non-fiction enlightenment reading. Parents can set a theme every month based on their children's interests, and choose some non-fiction books that children are interested in according to their reading ability.
For children aged seven or eight, the group mother recommended the magic school bus. The magic school bus is really amazing. Although every school bus trip is a fictional adventure, the scientific facts discovered during the adventure are true and accurate. It is like a bridge book between fiction and non-fiction reading, which can not only give children a magical experience of flying their imagination, but also present scientific facts in an amazing way.
It should be noted that unless the child's reading ability is already very strong, don't choose non-fiction books with long words. When reading, parents don't have to overemphasize that children must read the whole book. They can choose the chapters they are interested in, and parents can discuss with their children around the pages they are interested in, and guide their children to combine what they have learned in the book with real life.
In addition, when making a reading plan, parents can make an agreement with their children. For example, if children read fictional books, they must read non-fictional books. Parents can also download a reliable reading APP, record all the books their children have read, learn about their reading preferences and habits through monthly reading reports, adjust their reading plans in time, and enrich their reading themes.