Go Facts Upper: Natural Disasters integrates science, reading and writing. These downloadable PDF resources are ideal for use as part of a literacy program, or during a science unit about one of the topics in the set.

The Teaching Guide includes teaching notes on Reading Nonfiction and Writing Nonfiction for each title in Go facts Upper: Natural Disasters. To teach the reading and writing of information reports systematically, work through the lessons in the order in which they are presented, teaching a reading and writing lesson on each resource in the set.

This resource takes readers on a walk through the natural disasters: volcano, earthquake, wild weather, fire and drought. 

Reading the Nonfiction Text

The reading lessons in this guide are suitable for the whole class or small groups, and fit easily into the guided reading component of the reading block. The lessons explicitly teach effective reading strategies for processing information reports. The teacher introduces the text and selects the teaching points, before students read the text independently.

Using the Writing Nonfiction Lesson Notes

By following up each reading lesson with a lesson in writing nonfiction, students learn to use the same structures and strategies modelled in the Go facts Upper resource in their own nonfiction writing. If the writing lessons are taught in sequence, by the end of the series, students will have worked on an information report through all the stages of the writing process.

Using the Writing Mini-lessons

Mini-lessons with Work sheets cover each stage of the writing process. Although they sometimes refer specifically to one resource, the ideas in these Mini-lessons can be used by teachers for other books in the Go Facts Upper series, depending on the needs of the students and the stage of their writing. Some of the Mini-lesson work sheets can be reused with different content.

Assessment

Teachers can use the Assessment Checklist to record a student's progress in writing information reports by entering a date in the three columns. The work sheets provide opportunities for informal assessment throughout the reading and writing lessons.