Language Comprehension Interventions

Informational text structure interventions help students learn about how informational texts are organized. These types of interventions teach students how to navigate and comprehend informational texts by applying their knowledge of text features and text structures. When students learn these structures, they can understand the most important parts of the text. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students' understanding of informational text features and text structure. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains. 

Text features are an important part of informational text structure because they help the reader make sense of the main body of text. Text features include: table of contents, glossary, index, charts, captions, headings, diagrams, and tables.When students first begin to read informational text, they often have trouble navigating the text because it looks different from narrative text. There are pictures, labels, diagrams, and captions on the page, and students may have a hard time understanding what to read and when to read it. In order for students to effectively read and understand the main body of text, they need to be explicitly taught about the name and function of each text feature.  This page include intervention strategies that you can use to support your students' understanding of informational text features. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains. 

Explicit Instruction

To support your students' understanding of informational text features, you should start by explicitly teaching this concept. This sounds like:

Explain the Skill/Concept. Define informational text features, and explain the activity. ("Informational text features are elements that the author has included to help us understand the main body of text. For example, a heading helps us know what that section will be about. A diagram provides us with a visual so we can see the parts of an object." (Explain other text features.) "Today, we will be learning about how to identify and use these text features and text structures to support our understanding.")
Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how you read a text feature. ("When I am reading an informational text, I see elements of the text that are different from what I see in narrative text. I see pictures, captions, diagrams, maps, and other features. I notice that this word is in bold. It's called a heading, and it helps me identify what the next section will be about.")
Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about reading without using text features. ("If I skip over using the text features in an informational text, I miss out on some valuable information! This feature is called a diagram, and it shows the different parts of a bat. If I see this text feature and skim right over it, I won't get to learn about the bat's anatomy.")
Practice the Skill. Engage in the activity below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try to identify the text features and how they support your understanding.")

Activity A: Text Feature Walk 

A Text Feature Walk is done before the students read the main body of the text. This strategy allows students to apply their general knowledge of text features to see how they are used to aid understanding in an informational text:

1. In small groups, one student chooses a text feature.
2. The student identifies the text structure by name (map, picture, diagram, etc.)
3. The student reads the text feature.
4. As a group, the students discuss predictions, questions, and connections they have based on the text feature, as well as how it relates to the main idea of the text.
5. The process is repeated with all text features. 

Text Feature Walk in Action
Imagine that you are part of small-group conversation during a Text Feature Walk. You are reading this page about sharks. 
"Today, we will be doing a Text Feature Walk. In groups of 4, you will take turns reading, identifying, and discussing text features and how they help you understand the text. Remember: don't read the main body of the text yet just focus on the text features!" (Teacher explains five steps.)

A small-group conversation may sound like:
Student 1, pointing to caption under the shark with its mouth open: "Fastest Shark." (Student continues to read.) "Fastest shark that's a heading. It tells us what we will read about." 
All group members: "So, we'll probably read about the shark with the biggest teeth!!!" "No, the heading tells us that we'll read about the fastest shark, not the shark with the biggest teeth!" "I bet we'll read about the Great White Shark!" 
Next student reads a text feature.

Optional Deep dive: Read this article to gain a better understanding of how to implement a Text Feature Walk in the classroom. 

Kelley, M., & Clausen-Grace, N. (2010). Guiding students through expository text with text feature walks. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 191-195. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.library.relay.edu:2048/stable/40961980

Text structure is how the author organizes the main body of text in an informational text. The five main informational text structures are: sequence, problem/solution, description, compare and contrast, and cause and effect (refer to the Comprehension at a Glance Document for a review of these structures). Students must be explicitly taught about the different types of text structures, so that they can identify them as they read. If a student is able to identify the text structure that the author uses, then he will have an understanding of what to look for as he reads. For example, if a student understands that the structure of an informational text is problem/solution, then he knows that these are the two main characteristics he should look for as he reads. This page includes intervention strategies that you can use to support your students' understanding of informational text structures. As you read, consider which of these interventions best aligns with your student's strengths and needs in the whole-learner domains. 

Explicit Instruction

To support your students' understanding of informational text features, you should start by explicitly teaching this concept. This sounds like:

Explain the Skill/Concept. Define informational text structure, and explain the activity. ("An informational text structure is the way that the author has organized the main body of text. There are five main text structures that authors use for informational text, which include sequence, problem/solution, description, compare and contrast, and cause and effect. The author chooses this text structure based on what he wants you to learn about. For example, if the author wants you to learn about how two sharks are similar and different, he would use a compare-and-contrast structure so that we read about one topic first, and then about the other." (Explain other text structures.) "Today, we will be learning about how to identify these text structures to support our understanding.")
Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how you identify a text structure. ("Before I read an informational text, I scan the text to see if I can identify the text structure that the author used. I do this because knowing the structure will help me read the text more efficiently. For example, let's look at our shark text. I'm going to think aloud about how I determine the text structure. First, I look at the layout and identify any key words that align with the text structures. I don't see the words cause and effect or compare and contrast. I also don't see that there is a problem. Now, I'm going to use the text features to see if I can identify the structure. When I look at the headings, I see that the author describes a different type of shark in each paragraph, so I think the author used a description structure. Now I know that when I read each paragraph, I will learn details about different types of sharks.")
Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about reading without using identifying text structure. ("Watch what happens when I don't identify the text structure when I read." (Teacher reads page.) "Okay, so I've read the page about sharks. It sounds like there are a lot of kinds of sharks, but I'm not sure what I should do with this information. When I don't identify the text structure, I read without a purpose." )
Practice the Skill. Engage in the activity below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try to identify the text structures that the author used.")

Activity B: SQ3R

SQ3R stands for Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review! and is a reading strategy developed by Robinson (1970). This strategy can be used across texts, but can be particularly effective for informational texts so that students can preview the text features to form hypotheses about the information they are about to read. The five parts of SQ3R are as follows:

• Survey (before class) - Survey the chapter/text to get a sense of how the information is organized. During this time, students should get a general idea of what the text is about, what kind of information the author gives, and how many sub-topics there are
• Question (before class) - Turn each boldfaced heading into a question by using one of the following words: who, what, when, why, or how
• Read (after class) - Read the time, and write the answer to the question posed in Question
• Recite (after class) - Recite the answer, and put it into your own words
• Review (before next class) - Cover the answers, and ask yourself the questions to review important information.

SQ3R in Action
Give students a passage of text, and explain that they will be using the SQ3R strategy to preview and read the text. In this case, refer back to the shark text in Activity A. Identify each step of the process (Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review), model for students, and have students complete the activity.
Teacher: "Today, we will be using the SQ3R strategy to read and understand our text. During this process, you will..." (explain 5 steps).

Survey- "Watch as I model this strategy. First is S, Survey. I will survey the text to get a sense of how the content is organized. I see that there are lots of pictures and captions under the pictures. There are parts of text at the top and on the side. It looks like the text is broken down into smaller chunks by the headings. The main topic is sharks, but I can see that there are subtopics like fastest shark, largest fish, shark with the largest teeth, and so on. I see that the author is using the informational text structure of description because he is describing different types of sharks. He must be writing to inform the reader about the different species of sharks and what makes the sharks special."  

Question - "Now on to Q, Question. I'm going to practice turning each boldfaced heading into a question using one of the 5 W words. Let's try the heading Fastest Shark. My question is "What is the fastest shark?" (Teacher continues with all headings.)

Read- "Now, R, Read. I will read the text and answer my questions." (Teacher reads aloud.) "My question for this section was "What is the fastest shark? My answer is: 'The fastest shark is the Shortfin Mako, which can swim over 35 mph!" (Teacher continues to answer questions.)

Recite- "Now, R. Recite. I will try to put my question and answer into my own words. One of the fastest sharks in the world is called the Shortfin Mako. This shark can swim almost 35 mph!" (Teacher demonstrates with other sections.)

Review- "Finally our last step, R, Review. I'll cover my answers and see if I can remember the important information." (Teacher covers answers.) "What is the fastest shark? Well, it's the Shortfin Mako!"

Activity C: Main Idea & Supporting Details

Main Idea & Supporting Details is a reading strategy that students can use to help them distinguish important details from unimportant details in an informational text. Using this graphic organizer, students first write the main idea, and then find evidence in the text that supports the main idea. When students are just beginning to use this strategy, they can turn the headings into a question (from the Text Feature Walk activity above) and write the question into the main-idea box. Then, they can go back into the text and find three supporting details that answer this question. 

Main Idea PDF

Main Idea and supporting details. (n.d.). Copyright at Relay GSE. New York, NY:  Relay Graduate School of Education.

Main Idea & Supporting Details in Action
Imagine your class is reading this text about sharks as you read the script below.

Teacher: "Let's try finding the Main Idea and Supporting Details in our shark text. The heading to this section is 'Fastest Shark.' Let's first turn that into a question: What is the fastest shark? I will write that in my Main Idea box. Now, I want to find two supporting details that answer this question. Ok, I see one here: The Shortfin Mako is the fastest shark, so I'll write that down. I also see that it can swim up to 35 mph, so I'll write that down as well. Let's check: do these two supporting details answer my Main Idea question?" (Reads details.) "Yes."

Note: Activity C is one example of a graphic organizer that supports understanding of text structures. You can find more examples of graphic organizers that support text structure on the Summarizing and Synthesizing page.

Robinson, Francis, Pleasant. (1970). Effective study. New York: Harper & Row. 
Seminar on Literature for Youth. (2016). Sharks. Retrieved August 25 from http://eduscapes.com/nonfiction/images/sharkg.png.

Think about the following scenario, which takes place after a teacher has explicitly taught about how to identify and use text features, and has given multiple opportunities for practice:
     Teacher, pointing to a diagram of a bat's anatomy: "What text feature is this, and what information does it give us?"
     Student: "That's a picture. It helps you know that bats fly."

In such a case, what might you do? 

When you are planning your lessons, you should anticipate that your student will make errors throughout. Here are a series of prompts that you can use to respond to errors. Keep in mind that all students are different, and that students might respond better to some types of feedback than others.

If your student struggles to meet your objective, there are various techniques that you might try to adjust the activity so as best to meet your student's needs.