7 Key Reading Skills to Support Biographies

Listen to the full episode to hear key reading skills to support biographies:

I hope you’ve been enjoying this month’s biography theme. The last two episodes I gave tips for introducing biographies to your students and tips for using mentor texts. At this point your students should be familiar with the genre, which leads me to today’s episode. I will be sharing how to use biographies to focus on key reading skills that go hand in hand with this genre.

These reading skills really lend themselves beautifully to this genre and I’m going to tell you why. Although I could think of even more, today I will specifically be sharing seven key reading skills to target with biographies. The reason I want to talk about this is because you don’t have to always grab that fiction text when you want to introduce certain skills!

Biographies are factual stories that are typically arranged from the person’s childhood through their adult years. There is really no better genre to use when teaching sequencing. Once you get to thinking about how biographies are written and the information they contain, the more sense it will make as to why you should take a break from fiction texts when working on these reading skills.

The seven reading skills I talk about in this episode are super important for literacy. That’s not all though! These skills I targeted are also ones that are prioritized during test prep. Now that test prep is among us, it’s the perfect time to take the strategies from this episode and put them into practice. 

Biography is the perfect genre to work on so many different major reading skills that your students will need to learn to become strong readers. So put that fiction story down and let me know who you are teaching your students about this week!

In this episode on 7 key reading skills, I share:

• 7 reading skills that can be easily practiced through biographies
• Tips for incorporating these reading skills into biography exploration
• How biographies can be used to have student expand their answers
• Why biographies are beneficial for test prep

Related Resources:

• Free Biography Templates
• Easy Reader Biographies
• Black History Biography Activity Bundle
• Episode 69, 9 Quick Mini-Lesson Ideas for Biography Exploration
• Episode 68, Introducing and Teaching the Biography Genre

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About The Literacy Dive Podcast:

Do you find yourself seeking new ideas when it comes to literacy instruction in elementary classrooms? The Literacy Dive Podcast was created to offer actionable steps and to share information for teachers, like you, who are always looking to improve their craft! ELA is our jam and we are excited to dive into all things reading and writing with you!

Your host, Megan Polk, is the creator and owner behind The Literacy Dive and loves to support students and their teachers with curriculum, literacy instruction, best practices, and engaging literacy activities.

Dive in with us every Monday for a new episode from Megan! She, and her guests, will chat about various literacy topics and will bring you tips and tricks that can easily be implemented in your classrooms. You can tune in wherever you get your podcasts! Listen to The Literacy Dive Podcast on platforms like Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, and more! If you find value from listening to this podcast, please rate this show, leave a review, and follow!

You can tune in wherever you get your podcasts! Listen to The Literacy Dive Podcast on platforms like Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, and more! If you find value from listening to this podcast, please rate this show, leave a review, and follow!