*This post contains affiliate links. Welcome back to the last day of 5 Days Teaching Text Structure to Readers, a collaborative project with iHomeschool Network. If you’re new, please click on the image above or HERE to read all of the posts so far.
I am honored today to have Emily Kissner, an educator, blogger, and two-time author, guest posting today on text structure. If you’ve never read any of her books or seen her amazing products on TpT, you’re in for a REAL treat. This lady is an expert on teaching text structure to kids and does so in a such an effective way.
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I love teaching readers how to identify expository text structures. Finding transition words, creating graphic organizers, and categorizing paragraphs are all big parts of my text structure instruction.
However, over the years I’ve learned that I can’t just stop with identification. Teaching readers how to find a text structure is not an end within itself. Instead, text structure knowledge is a way to get to a deeper understanding of text. Here are four things that I do in the classroom to help readers use text structure.
1. Use Text Structure to Ask Questions of Text
Once readers can identify the text structure of a text, they can use that structure to ask questions of a text. Each text structure really invites a reader to ask certain questions. A chronological order text structure can elicit time-based questions—“How long does this process last? Is it always the same? How does it change over time?”
And asking questions is a big deal. When teachers ask me why their students are not making inferences, often it is because the readers are not asking questions of the text as they read. Asking the right questions leads to making the right inferences—which leads to a richer, more meaningful reading experience.
2. Identify and Use the Structure of Longer, More Complex Texts
A river has one main flow, but often has smaller currents and eddies. In the same way, a text often has one main text structure, but several places in which the author uses a different text structure at the paragraph or chapter level. Consider the text Face to Face with Dolphins. Overall, the text is written to describe dolphins. However, the section about a dolphin’s life cycle is written in chronological order. A section about the struggles that dolphins are facing shows the text structure of cause and effect. These different sections lead readers to interesting questions—“Why did the author use this particular structure for this information?”
It’s a lesson that readers can take into their writing as well. Once readers notice how authors interchange text structures, they can experiment with trying out different text structures as well. And this experimentation leads to writing that explores information in new and different ways that bring details to life.
3. Use Text Structure to Answer Questions after Reading a Text
Skilled readers need to be able to quickly locate information to answer questions. Readers who don’t know how to use text structure often use inefficient search strategies—for example, they may go back and reread the entire text, or they may listlessly turn the pages hoping that the right detail appears.
Text structure provides a framework for information. A skilled reader who is looking for an effect in a cause and effect text will naturally look toward the end of the text—after all, effects come after causes! Helping readers to think about the connection between text structure and locating information makes the task of finding details to answer questions much easier.
4. Use Text Structure to Read Critically
Persuasive text is often written as cause and effect or problem and solution. Readers need to learn that these text structures should be viewed with some caution. Why is the author presenting this information? Do the causes actually lead to the effects? Is the solution a good way to solve the stated problem?
Advertisements are often good sources of text for these critical reading experiences. Consider this commercial for an ice cream maker. What is the problem in the commercial? What is the solution? Now here is the critical thinking part—is the product the only solution to the problem? What other solutions could exist? When readers know to be cautious of problem and solution texts, they evaluate the text more carefully and consider the evidence that is presented.
Identifying expository text structure is an important skill for readers of all ages. But don’t let the learning end there! Go beyond identification of text structures to help students ask and answer questions, craft complex texts, and read critically.
~Emily Kissner
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~Becky
You know, I always considered language arts as something that you just “get” naturally. I absolutely don’t recall going into the same depth in my native Russian. Thanks for sharing this tips for parents – we will be able to help our children better by learning a few things ourselves.