Fast Facts

by Jill Schultz
(Portland, OR)

My third grade students often got very bored when I read to them from science, or nonfiction books, even if they had lots of pictures. I also wanted them to learn to do research. Soooo, I checked out a bunch of books on a topic from the library (in this case, wetlands), and gave one to each student.

I had previously shown them how to take brief, summary notes of important facts. This time I told them each would have a book for 3 minutes, and could read whatever page/s they wanted but needed to find 3 or more facts in the 3 minutes. When the timer went off, we switched books, and started the process again. At the end, we all shared our findings.

Thus the students each used 3-4 books and were learning to research, summarize, share findings, and look for the most important info on a page. They all enjoyed it!