Text Features & Comprehension
When K-5 students understand how to read text features like bullets, insets, and bold print, they are reading the whole page — essential for deep comprehension of nonfiction and fiction text. In the revised edition of Teaching Text Features to Support Comprehension, seasoned educators Michelle Kelley and Nicki Clausen-Grace show teachers how to explicitly instruct K-5 students to read text features, use them to navigate text, and include them in their own writing.
Sixty mini-lessons for teaching print, graphic, and organizational features provide ample choices for meeting the standards while adapting to students’ needs. The lessons, which follow the gradual release of responsibility model and increase in difficulty, can be used within the typical 90-minute reading block, during content area instruction, in small groups, and as part of independent practice opportunities. Each lesson offers concept review, suggestions for differentiation, assessment options, and technology connections, requiring students to find, explore, manipulate, and create text features in their own writing.
The book features important resources and convenient lesson supports including:
- Thinksheets
- Visual examples of each text feature
- Rubrics
- Assessment picture book
- Downloadable Readers’ Theatre scripts
For Your Reference
- How to Use the Online Files and List of Online Resources
- I Want a Dog! eBook for displaying
- I Want a Dog! eBook for printing
(Printing Tip: To print the book, set your printer for duplex (two-sided) printing with top binding.)
Grade 1
Table 1.2: Text Feature Definitions and Examples
Grade 2
- Thinksheet 2.1: Give Your Book a Title
- Thinksheet 2.2: Chapter Title Sort Cards
- Thinksheet 2.3: Create a Cover
- Thinksheet 2.4: Help! Animals Need to Be Rescued Article
- Thinksheet 2.5: Bold and Italic Word Detective
- Thinksheet 2.6: Caption Match Sorting Cards
- Features Activity 7: Flamingo Feather Image
- Thinksheet 2.7: Where Does It Fit?
- Thinksheet 2.8: Write a Caption
- Thinksheet 2.9: Text Bullets
- Thinksheet 2.10: Reading Bullets
- Thinksheet 2.11: All About Me in Bullets
- Thinksheet 2.12: Using Bullets to Summarize
- Thinksheet 2.13: Which Sidebar Fits?
- Pets
- Readers’ Theatre Script: What Are Print Features?
Grade 3
- Thinksheet 3.1: Which Picture?
- Thinksheet 3.2: Set in What?
- Thinksheet 3.3: Inset Hunt
- Thinksheet 3.4: Cross-Section Hunt
- Graphic Features Activity 13: How to Read a Diagram
- Thinksheet 3.5: Explain It! Creating a Diagram
- Thinksheet 3.6: Diagram Rubric
- Graphic Features Activity 17: What is a Map? Sentence Frame
- Thinksheet 3.7: Parts of a Map — “What Am I?”
- Thinksheet 3.8: Creating a Map
- Thinksheet 3.9: Map Rubric
- Thinksheet 3.10: Three Little Pigs — Timeline
- Thinksheet 3.11: The History of Candy in America — Timeline
- Thinksheet 3.12: Timeline Organizer
- Thinksheet 3.13: Timeline Rubric
- Thinksheet 3.14: “What am I?” — The Anatomy of a Graph
- Thinksheet 3.15: Reading and Answering Questions About a Graph
- Thinksheet 3.16: Creating a Favorites Graph
- Thinksheet 3.17: What’s Your Favorite ______?
- Thinksheet 3.18: Graph Rubric
- Thinksheet 3.19: African Animal Fun Facts
- Thinksheet 3.20: Reading a Table
- Thinksheet 3.21: Creating a Table
- Thinksheet 3.22: Table Rubric
- Readers’ Theatre Script: What Are Graphic Features?
Grade 4
- Thinksheet 4.1: Write a Table of Contents
- Thinksheet 4.2: Alphabetical Index Sorting Cards
- Thinksheet 4.3: Create an Index
- Thinksheet 4.4: What is a Glossary?
- Readers’ Theatre Script: What are Organizational Features?
Grade 5
- Thinksheet 5.1: Examples of Text Features Cards
- Thinksheet 5.2: Names (Labels) of Text Features
- Thinksheet 5.3: Text Feature Definitions
- Thinksheet 5.4: Text Feature T-chart
- Thinksheet 5.5: Print Feature Scavenger Hunt
- Thinksheet 5.6: Graphic Feature Scavenger Hunt
- Thinksheet 5.7: Organizational Feature Scavenger Hunt
- Thinksheet 5.8: Blank Scavenger Hunt