Comparing Books- Reading for Information

At the grade one level, we read for information often. We read information books to gather a collection of facts. We collect facts for making mini-research projects or reports. (We did the same thing in grade four last year! It's amazing how much practice kids need in doing this!)

I also spend time reading story books for the purpose of gathering information as well. During the Christmas season, we read various versions of The Nutcracker. Most of the comparisons between books were made orally at that time. During our Winter unit, we have been reading various versions of The Mitten. This time, we filled in a question chart each time we read a different version of the book.
Here are the books we have used so far:

To do this, I just made a chart that asked questions about some of the differences between the books. We even came up with one as a class. Then, each time we read a book, we filled in the chart. Pretty simple. We have one more book to read, then we will highlight the information that was the same in each book.

This could be done as a Centres circuit--each center could be reading one book and filling in one column of the chart. This could also be done at the older grade levels--in a partners or small group setting, or as part of a Literature Circles activity.