We all know that introducing kids to different genres is important.  But do we really, truly know why?  And the immediate next question:  do we really, truly know the best way to go about it?  

I’m going to get into all of that today–but because I like to keep things as easy yet meanginful as possible, my take on genre introduction will be simplified.  Who doesn’t love simple?

Ok, first things first.  Why is genre introduction so important?  

Yes, we would all love for our students to read a wide variety of genres so that they can learn who they are as readers.  It’s why implementing reading challenges (which I share important considerations for here) are such a ubiquitous teacher practice.  

But it’s much more than that.

Really understanding genre, and how they each tend to go, is the building block for understanding main ideas and summarizing.  Whenever I see kids give me random details in a book, it’s a sure sign they don’t understand how the text was organized. This applies to both fiction and nonfiction. And when they don’t understand the text structure, it’s a pretty solid bet that they don’t understand the key ideas overall.  If all kids know is that “fiction is made up” and “nonfiction is true,” random details are sure to follow. These kids don’t deeply understand genre.

Readers should be able to pick up a book, preview it, and pretty well understand its structure.  This gives the footing needed to attend to the big ideas and suss out what’s not so important.  Understanding text structure is everything when it comes to comprehension (assuming, obviously, that it’s not decoding, fluency, or vocabulary holding them back).  And it all starts with first understanding the genre.

And let’s not forget how integrated reading and writing are.  When kids really understand how a genre is structured, they’re much more apt to be able to write in that genre.  The beautiful part about this?  When kids understand the way writers develop a text in a particular genre, they’re more keenly aware how a text they read is structured.  

So genre introduction is important.  

But there are some ineffective and complicated ways to go about it, and some much more effective, simplified ways.

Let’s start with what not to do.

First, there’s no point in printing out and putting up tiny posters of every single possible nuanced genre under the sun.  Not only is this just information overload, it’s also just wallpaper.  The topic of what’s on your classroom walls is for another day. Suffice it to say if you haven’t explicitly taught–by explaining, showing, and modeling–what’s on the walls (unless it’s simply for aesthetics), it’s just wallpaper to kids.

Things like foldables, booklets, games, and task cards also miss the point.  While you’ll find these kinds of packaged bundles all over TPT, they do very little for students except maybe provide some vocabulary and definitions of genre.  They do not help kids truly understand the structure of a genre as a reader and a writer, which is the goal.  

Another often used tactic that doesn’t do much?  Spending a good deal of time (even a couple of weeks) introducing all kinds of genres at the beginning of the year and then never really coming back to it.  

This is problematic for a couple of reasons.  One, the never coming back to it part.  A firehose of genre information early in the year will likely be quickly forgotten, especially if no real meaning is attached to it.  (See tips below)  But the other reason is that we tend to do pretty much the same introductions year after year after year.  That would be like introducing single-digit addition every single year but never growing in depth.  At some point, they’ve heard it enough.  But also, how does student understanding of genre go deeper if we just share the same exact information with students year in and year out?  

So how do we tackle genre introduction?

By keeping it simple. 

Here are some much more effective–and easier–ways to do it:

1. Every time you read aloud, model how to preview a book to keep genre in mind.  Then, as you model your thinking during the reading, come back to that genre structure to point out key ideas and details.
2. Vary the genres you do read aloud.  Not just in “literacy” time, but also in content areas, too.  Exposing students to all kinds of genres all year long–and making genre a part of the discussion–will go very far in helping kids understand how they’re similar and different.  
3. Rather than simply put up colorful genre posters near the classroom library as decor, highlight a specific genre at a time to really talk about it.  Show your students what selections you have, and consider doing some book talks or read a small portion of a few to get kids excited to dig into that genre.   Ideally, your talk would be connected to something you’re reading aloud or using during shared reading.  This provides context for students, making now the time to display a poster–that overall display should grow over time.  
4. Before even beginning a new genre study, say historical fiction or biography, start reading a few of them ahead of time.  Talk about their structure and what makes it the genre that it is.  There is often BIG discussion around whether or not a book is nonfiction when the illustrations are drawings.  These discussions to frontload a genre before deeply diving into it (especially if your class will also writing in that genre) will help them tremendously.
5. Write in the same genre.  Many state standards simply list “narrative”  or “informational” as a writing genre.  But the options are endless here.  Think about what kind of narrative; what kind of informational text.  After immersing them into the genre as in tip #3, you’re ready to model and teach that kind of writing.
6. If you are lucky enough to have a school librarian that shares books with kids in any way, work with that person.  They can also showcase different genres and talk about how they’re structured.  Your librarian might even be able to read aloud some books in different genres across the year as well, to echo and reinforce what you’re working on in the classroom

Genre introductions are simple to do, but much more in-depth than the cut and glue activities you’ll often see online.  This cannot be reduced to a couple of lessons at the beginning of the year and never touched again.  In order to truly help kids understand genre–and the structures that they follow–it takes intention and time.  This ongoing work will spark excitement in different students all year long because different kids will grab onto different kinds of texts.  This is a great way to keep the momentum for reading going.  And because of all of this ongoing practice,  you’ll find that your students will have a much greater understanding of texts in general.  

And that, of course, is the entire goal.  

Looking for ways to organize your classroom library to support genre work?  You may want to check out my FREE Classroom Library Audit, where I’ve simplified the process of determining what your library needs to make it the best it can be.  This is a fabulous tool to use before you set your library up for the year OR as you close it out at year’s end.

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle, a 24-year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls! 

Or, consider joining my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment (really!)  where you can ask questions, learn ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!