The Information Toolkit (introduction)

The Information Toolkit

by Steve Moline

Introduction: Using this book

The Information Toolkit is for the teacher who would like additional support with helping children to read and write information. It provides:

examples of information genres
examples of visual texts found in many information resources assessment sheets for each kind of text
units of work for reading and viewing, writing and drawing, listening and speaking

The book can be seen as a literacy toolkit. The teacher's tools are:

assessment sheets
lesson plans
overview pages

The children's tools are:

information sheets
activity sheets
planning sheets (frameworks)

The pages in this book may be copied by teachers for classroom use only.

Overview pages

These pages outline the units of work (research tasks) and can be used when planning a balanced nonfiction literacy program.

Genres

An example of each information genre is provided with a checklist of its main features. These can be used for your own reference and as models for the children to use when writing their own texts:

This example of an information report can be photocopied for the students from the book. On the right is a useful list of key features that are typical of the report genre.

An assessment sheet for each genre lists the main outcomes when working with this kind of text. Space is also provided for your comments, which are always likely to be more valuable than simply checking the boxes:

Check the boxes on the left, and add your comments on the right. Usually when we assess a child's work we notice points that need still to be taught. Jot these down in the "Follow-up" box at the foot of the page. In this way assessment can be used to focus our teaching.

The last outcome box is always left blank. This allows you to add an outcome that applies to the particular activity or child you are assessing.

The Follow up box at the bottom of the page provides an opportunity to consider any specific need that is revealed by your assessment notes. This could be a detail to reinforce in your teaching, or an aspect of writing that the child needs to practice. In this way, assessment leads naturally to the next step in learning.

Assessment sheets can be attached to the child's work and kept with the child's writing portfolio. Together they can be used for your own records and/or to send home to parents.

More about assessment here.

Visual texts

Visual texts are a characteristic and important feature of information. Often a visual text (such as a map or a diagram) will convey the meaning more clearly and memorably than the same information written in words or paragraphs. Children need practice in using these kinds of visual texts and in deciding which kind of text is best suited to a particular task.

Visual texts also serve as graphic organizers when planning a text in a particular genre. A graphic organizer helps the child to organize information when planning to write a text in a particular genre. Many of the activities in this book use visual texts for this purpose.

Each visual text example is accompanied by notes on its main features. As with the genre examples, these can be used for your own reference and as models for the children to use when writing visual texts:

The example of a flow chart is on the left. Key features of a flow chart are listed on the right. You can photocopy this example from the book, so that students have a guide to making a flow chart when they design their own.

The visual text assessment sheets are intended to be used in the same way as the genre assessment sheets:

The assessment sheets are designed to simplify the job of evaluating student work. You can use this assessment sheet yourself, or hand it out for students to monitor their own work. A separate assessment sheet is available for each kind of visual text.

Matching genres to visual texts

Visual texts can be used in three different ways:

to plan a text in a particular genre
to illustrate a text
to summarize a text

The chart Matching genres to visual texts summarizes the ways in which visual texts help your students to research information. You can also develop other writing activities using this chart as a starting point.

Units of work: research tasks

Each unit of work is designed as a research activity, and should be treated as a whole. This gives a meaningful purpose to the written work and helps children see how genres and visual texts are useful.

For this reason it is recommended that individual pages should not be used in isolation as practice or "busy work."

Each work unit starts with a lesson plan and often includes (for the children's use):

an information sheet
an activity sheet, for collecting and organizing information
a framework, for planning their own texts

This information sheet presents the key facts in the form of diagrams (picture glossaries).

The information sheet may be in the form of a visual text such as a diagram, providing information in a form that is accessible to beginning readers.

The activity sheet provides a new format into which children are asked to organize the information they have gathered. Notes at the top of the sheet help children with organizing the information.

The framework: In this book, frameworks are used to plan a text written in a particular genre. Children can use a framework to write a first or final draft. The framework helps children to check that they have included all the genre's key features. Examples of frameworks include:

Personal Recount
Factual Recount
Procedure (Instructions)
Information Report
Explanation
Persuasion (Argument, Exposition)
Discussion

A framework organizes the student's essay ideas at the planning stage. This ensures that the writer knows where to start, what to write next, and how to finish.

These frameworks can also be adapted for use with other topics in the same genre.

Glossaries and Index

Technical terms used in the text are defined in the glossaries. There are two glossaries, one for genres, the other for visual texts. Page numbers in the glossary refer you to examples in the book, enabling you to use the glossaries as an index as well.

An index of topics is also provided.

Outcomes of this approach

In all of these units of work, children are asked to read or brainstorm information in one format (such as a table) and to present the results of their research in a different format (usually a written text such as a report or procedure).

They are never asked to present the information in the same format.

This ensures that they are engaged in genuine comprehension and avoid the problems of copying.

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Distributed in USA by Dominie Press/Pearson

Distributed in Canada as Show Me! by Scholastic Canada.

Distributed in Australia as The Information Toolkit by Oxford University Press.

All other countries click here.

A full contents list can be found here.

What are genres?

A genre is a style of writing.

Fiction genres include novels, plays and poems.

Nonfiction genres include explanations, instructions, reports, recounts, discussions, and arguments