The Best Picture Books to Teach Text Structure

Here we are again with another blog post about picture books. You know I love my picture books and incorporating different ideas in them. A few weeks ago, I wrote about The Best Books About Space for Kids and this week we are getting into nonfiction picture books (mainly to use during text structure).

Nonfiction Picture Book #1

One of my favorite nonfiction picture books is called Gorillas by Seymour Simon. When people ask me the best picture book- It’s always going to be Seymour Simon. This book uses to compare and contrast, timeline (chronological order), and description. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that Seymour Simon is one of my favorite nonfiction authors.

Nonfiction Picture Book #2

Another wicked awesome book is the Titanic. I use this book to really solidify the chronological order and to help them understand how an event played out. We use the book “You wouldn’t want to sail on the Titanic!” and we go through the beginning by working out the faults with the Titanic. We move on to the night of the Titanic hitting the iceberg and how/when the ship went down.

Nonfiction Picture Book #3

So you want to be President? I mean I don’t… just kidding. Nonfiction picture book #3 is such a funny but real book. Seriously. This book does a fantastic job comparing and contrasting the different presidents, the benefits, the downsides, and it evens get into the different personalities. There are some pretty funny lines in this book and every year my kids ALWAYS remember specific parts of the book. For example, Taft needs multiple bathtubs, Jackson got into fights with everyone, and how some Presidents were not good Presidents and recognized their weakenesses.

Nonfiction Picture Book #4

Another AMAZING nonfiction author is Gail Gibbons. I use her books so many times throughout the year. I use her book during science time and reading time. This book or her hurricanes book is fantastic for description. I love how descriptive she is in this book. She simply tells you everything you need about tornadoes (or hurricanes). Since I live in Florida, we usually read Hurricanes pretty early in the year because our Hurricane Season is in the beginning of the year.

Nonfiction Book #5

This book actually has a series and ALL of them are really good. I chose to tell you about this one because it makes me happy knowing people are out there helping the bees. This book is used for cause & effect. It shows the IF we lose the bees- we will more than just that. We will lose flowers, and animals, etc. This series also contains what will happen if the sea otters disappears. This was also a real thing that happened in the 1900’s.

You can check out my Dive Into Reading units and this will help you with some of your nonfiction picture books!