5 questions you probably have about teaching your students to research…
Can K-2 students really learn to research?
The answer to the question is simple. YES! I know what you're probably thinking.. but they are so young, some of them can't even read yet, I'm going to be the one doing all the work… and the list goes on. I'm here to tell you that your students are capable of doing research. They may not be ready for independent research but they are ready to ask questions and find the answers.
Why do I need to teach them to research?
If you are wondering about this, I have a question for you…Why don't you need to? We want our students to be engaged, active learners who are prepared for their futures. Does research look the same in grades K-2 as it does at the high school level? Absolutely not BUT they have to start learning sometime, why not now? My students were always the most engaged when they felt they were playing a big part in the lesson and not just listening to me regurgitate information. Let them help you research!
How may times have you asked Google, Siri or Alexa a question? I can say this happens at least once a day, if not more, in our house… How did you learn to use your resources to find answers to your questions? Easy! Someone taught you to research it. Researching answers to questions is a life long skill that we should be teaching our students
If you are not ready to let them do it independently, I encourage you to start by doing a whole-class research project. One of my favorite units to teach walks you through the process of modeling what research looks like for your students, allows for them to do their own research and they create their own “All About” books. This allows for them to research with the appropriate amount of scaffolding for their grade and ability levels. In short, you can do it as a whole class, in small groups or independently if you have students who are ready. Find my unit here.
What tools should I teach them to use and what non-fiction components should we focus on?
Your students should learn how to find answers in a variety of ways. They may read it in a book, listen to it in a video or do a Google search. Chances are at this level, you will have to point them in the right direction. provide them with books about their topic, give them resources through Epic so they can listen to someone else read the information to them or find pre-approved videos that they can listen to and learn new information from. (I like to use QR codes for them to access the videos.) You can even provide them with articles at their reading level to help them find information. I am in no way suggesting that you introduce your students to researching a topic and then letting them go freely without any support. At this level, the proper scaffolding is KEY if you haven't figured that out yet. 🙂
I'm going to answer the second part of this question by asking you a question.. What components do good non-fiction books have? They have a table of contents, factual information- that generally answers questions the reader might have, vocabulary words, a glossary, as well as other text features. Start by explicitly teaching the different parts of a great non-fiction book. As you teach them the different parts, give them time to create an example of one together as a whole group, again during small group time and then eventually independently. They may need quite a bit of guidance with this at first but they are all capable of doing it if you start by adequately modeling it and continuing to scaffold them throughout the process.
But my students really aren't ready… then what?
Refer back to the first question. Your students may not be ready to independently research anything but with the proper amount of support from you, they can easily be introduced to the steps it takes to research a topic and write about it. They are ready for you to lead them through the process. In my big end of the year unit I could easily differentiate it based on what my class needed. If they weren't ready to research in small groups with support or independently, I would lead them through the steps as a whole group. We would create anchor charts together, read stories, watch videos and students had their own journals to record the information in. This helped them stay actively engaged. The students were introduced into the same research they would have been had they done it independently but they were provided with the scaffolding they needed. If I had students who were ready to work as a group or independently, they were given the freedom to do so. It was a little more work for me but it allowed them to continue to grow as well.
What if I don't have time to do a research project?
Teaching a research project can integrate many standards that are cross-curricular. Reading, writing, science and social studies standards can all be met through a large research project. Take a couple of week's and integrate it throughout the different parts of your day. Yes, it will take up a large portion of your teaching for those weeks but you will also be meeting a wide range of standards that would take you just as long to teach if you didn't teach them cross-curricular.
If you're still on the fence about attempting a research project in grades K-2, my advice is to start small. Get a good feel for it and then move into a full research project.
What topics do would you like to see made into research units? Drop me a comment below!