Remove the Text to Reveal the Text Features

To introduce text features to students, consider removing all the gray text (traditional paragraph text) from the page. Download an example. It's easier to see text features when the text is removed. It's not so overwhelming! Demonstrate to students that text features are not necessarily to be read from left-to-right and top-to-bottom. Nonfiction has multiple entry points. The reader's eye can enter the text at any point. Ask students What did you look at first? What did you notice second? If you have laser pointers, utilize them to show how your eyes are traveling around the page.

Although you could start reading with any text feature on the page, the key is to continue skimming the page. Take a picture walk of sorts. What's this text going to be about? Use the text features to gain a vision for the text in general. This will help students establish a general reading purpose. It gets them thinking, wondering, and questioning right away. Teach your readers about the power of text features as a pre-reading strategy.