Benefits of Related Reading

BrainPOP’s high-interest, fact-filled Related Reading articles invite students to deepen and extend their understanding of a BrainPOP topic while seamlessly practicing important reading comprehension skills such as making inferences, identifying main ideas and details, and comparing/contrasting.

From reading the newspaper to following a recipe and everything in between, informational texts are all around us and we interact with them every day, multiple times a day. They help connect us with the world while continuing to build and strengthen vocabulary. Knowing how to read them is an important lifelong skill. 

The ability to read and understand informational texts is also essential for conducting research, both for school projects and personal interest. Reluctant readers may prefer to read about the real world over fictional stories. Hooking into their interests and natural curiosity in many cases may be what gets them interested in reading.

As students progress through school, they will encounter informational text with more frequency, from reading content-specific material in textbooks, articles, online, etc to passages in standardized tests. The more experience they have with informational reading, starting in the earliest grades, the better prepared they will be.

BrainPOP’s Related Reading articles have a breadth of content and are mindfully aligned with the topics they are learning about in school. By providing choice (up to 6 Related Reading texts for each topic), students have agency to deepen knowledge on the topic in a way that is meaningful to them.