Reading Nonfiction Notice & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies

Visit www.heinemann.com/ReadingNonfiction for special previews, videos, and more. 

Also available: Reading Nonfiction Student Bookmarks and Notice & Note/Reading Nonfiction Signpost Student Bookmarks

“When students recognize that nonfiction ought to challenge us, ought to slow us down and make us think, then they’re more likely to become close readers.” That means we need to help them question texts, authors, and, ultimately, their own thinking. No matter the content area, with Reading Nonfiction’s classroom-tested suggestions, you’ll lead kids toward skillful and responsible disciplinary literacy.

Picking up where their smash hit Notice & Note left off, Kylene Beers and Bob Probst write: “Fiction invites us into the writer’s imagined world; nonfiction intrudes into ours and purports to tell us something about it.” This crucial difference increases the responsibility of the nonfiction reader, so Kylene and Bob have developed interlocking scaffolds that every student can use to go beyond a superficial reading:

• 3 essential questions that set students up for closer, more attentive readings of nonfiction texts
• 5 Notice & Note nonfiction signposts that cue kids to apply the skills and processes that sophisticated readers use instinctively
• 7 proven strategies readers can use to clear up confusions when the text gets tough.

We all know the value of helping students define nonfiction and understand its text structures. Reading Nonfiction goes the next crucial step―helping kids challenge the claims of nonfiction authors, be challenged by them, and skillfully and rigorously make up their mind about purported truths.

Bob Probst is the author of Response and Analysis, he is coeditor (with Kylene Beers and Linda Rief) of Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice, and coauthor (with Kylene Beers) of Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading and Reading Nonfiction; Notice & Note Stances Signposts, and Strategies, all published by Heinemann. Bob has also published numerous articles, chapters, and monographs in national and international publications.

Bob began his teaching career as high school English teacher and then became a supervisor of English for a large district in Maryland. He spent most of his academic career at Georgia State University where he is now Professor Emeritus of English Education. After retiring from Georgia State University, he served as a research fellow for Florida International University. Bob is now a consultant to schools, nationally and internationally, focusing on literacy improvement. He works in schools with his colleague and co-author, Kylene Beers.

Bob has served as a member on the Conference on English Board of Directors, an NCTE journal columnist, a member of the national advisory board to American Reading Company, and a member of the NCTE Commission on Reading. In 2004 he was awarded the NCTE’s Exemplary Leadership Award, presented by the Conference on English Leadership.

Dr. Kylene Beers is currently an international literacy consultant and previously was a Senior Reading Researcher at the Comer School Development Program at Yale University. She began her career as a middle school language arts teacher outside of Houston, TX. She is the author or co-author of many best-selling books including When Kids Can’t Read/What Teachers Can Do; Forged by Reading; Disrupting Thinking; Reading Nonfiction; and Notice and Note – Strategies for Close Reading. Disrupting Thinking, which she co-authored with Robert Probst, is a 2018 recipient of the Teachers Choice Awards.

Kylene has served on committees with the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English and is an often-invited keynote speaker to national and state conventions. She has served as president of the National Council of Teachers of English and is currently serving as a board member for the international LitWorld Foundation. She is a recipient of the NCTE Leadership Award and the NCTE Middle Grades Outstanding Teacher award.

Most importantly, Kylene is a teacher who continues to work in classrooms today across the nation as she works shoulder-to-shoulder with teachers and students. When not on an airplane, Kylene lives on her ranch with her husband, Brad, and their fabulous dog, Coda, in central Texas.