reading

Teach readers to discern 5 nonfiction text structures

As we prepare readers to infer a text’s main idea and eventually the author’s purpose, it’s important to build a foundation of understanding about text structures. Just like houses are constructed with a frame, authors construct texts by intentionally putting together particular information.

Stories or narrative texts have a predictable text structure. They ALWAYS present a character who faces a conflict that gets resolved. This consistent organization makes it easier for students to follow.

However, nonfiction text is not so predictable; it can utilize one of five different text patterns. Consequently, without an understanding of text structures, the reader doesn’t know how to mentally organize the barrage of facts, names, dates, and details that he is consuming.

This often leads to confusion and makes nonfiction text intimidating.

Connect text structure to author purpose

The secret to overcoming this reader obstacle is to understand that the author chose a specific text structure to correspond with his purpose. There is an intentional relationship between what details he includes in his writing and why he is writing. Consequently, it’s easiest to teach the nonfiction text structures alongside author purposes.

Review the three broad reasons to write—to persuade, to inform, and to entertain (i.e., P.I.E.). Although there is only one way for authors to organize persuasive text and only one way for authors to organize narrative text, there are 5 different ways for authors to organize nonfiction text. To make this more clear, reveal a more specific to-inform purpose for each text structure.

1. If the author wants TO TEACH the reader how something works, then he must use a procedural step-by-step text structure.
2. If the author wants TO EXPLAIN all about something, then he must use a descriptive or categorical text structure.
3. If an author wants TO STUDY TWO things in one text, then he must use a compare-contrast text structure.
4. If an author wants TO RELATE TWO things, then he must use a cause-effect text structure.
5. If an author wants to reveal the BEFORE & AFTER of something, then he must use a problem-solution text structure.

TIP: The easiest way for students to see the difference in organizational patterns is to show them similar information about the SAME TOPIC presented in different text structures.

Once students know of these five different ways to organize nonfiction texts, teach them how to discern which one an author used. (NOTE: Shorter texts often use a single text structure. Longer, more complex text often includes paragraph blocks or sections that each have its own text structure.)

Analyze the type of information per section

Teach students to look carefully at the topic revealed in the introduction, the type of information in the body, and the kinds of transitions used among sentences.

Great Teacher Comments

While teaching fourth and fifth graders at Valparaiso Community Schools (Valparaiso, IN), Faryl Smith introduced her students to text structures within her already existing content-area curriculum studies. For several years, she started the year teaching the water cycle & weather using the science textbook. From that, she went on to teach about the features of that type of text by using different information books and discovering the layout.

From there, she began teaching specific text structures and signal words/key words—so crucial to teach! Fifth grade was able to move through this quickly, but fourth grade needed more time since they were transitioning into reading to learn.

One discovery that surprised Faryl was that even her highest learners needed this kind of instruction. They didn’t understand how to read information text nor did they understand the structure of the text.

After her students could identify the structure of a paragraph, she moved them on to headings. Since there are many kinds of text structures, she chose to focus on five main ones: chronological-sequence, cause-effect, problem-solution, compare-contrast, and description. Once they had a handle on identifying these five (with much practice!!), she moved on to teach main idea.

To teach main idea, Faryl asked her students, What is the text structure? How do you know that? What supports your choice? Then, if it was description, the next question would be, What is the person, place, thing, or idea that is being described? The answer to that is the main idea! What is the problem and how was it solved? That is the main idea! What is being compared? That is the main idea. What happened and why did it happen? That is the main idea. What is this sequence about or what event is taking place? That is the main idea.

From there, students learned how to write those answers as a main-idea statement. Faryl shared, with excitement, that she saw light bulbs come on. The kids surprised themselves with how understanding the text structure led them to the main idea with ease.

For that reason, Faryl counts it worth her time at the beginning of the year to spend the time on text features and structures. If kids know how it is written and how to read it, they can access information from so many different texts and UNDERSTAND them! From then on, they can ask appropriate questions and make predictions about informational texts because they know how to use text features. They can summarize and identify the main idea because they understand the structure of the text. They can go back and support their answers because they know how to find where that information will be instead of rereading the whole thing.

For Faryl and her students, this journey has been eye-opening—helping those intermediate grades transition from learning how to read to reading to learn.