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One challenge associated with teachers being good readers is that we frequently perform reading skills without being conscious of performing them. Since these skills often need to be explicitly taught to many of our students, it is necessary for us to consciously identify and understand the skills associated with proficient reading. One of the skills proficient readers automatically perform when reading informational texts is identifying the text structure. Proficient readers do this by recognizing cue, or signal, words that indicate to them whether a text might be comparing or contrasting, providing the reader with a sequence of events, or describing characteristics. Once readers recognize the structure of a text, they are able to easily identify the critical information. Proficient readers are able to better remember important ideas because they have a mental framework for them.

One way teachers can help students develop a mental framework for identifying important ideas within texts is to provide graphic organizers for note taking. Students can use the graphic organizers to record information from texts so that, eventually, they will be able to create their own graphic organizers as they take notes. Check out the links below that correspond to the different text structures. The web-site links also provide excellent descriptions of the different text structures and ideas for teaching them.

Check out this link to “Literacy Matters” for information on what the text structures are, as well as ideas for teaching them.

Many students enter high school unskilled in the art of reading to learn from science textbooks. Even students who can read full-length novels often find science books difficult to read because students have relatively little practice with the various types of expository text structures used by such textbooks. Here, Montelongo et al present a vocabulary activity to improve student awareness of text structure and context.

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Children in the middle grades often have difficulty learning from reading the expository prose of their content area textbooks. Fortunately, instruction about text structure can improve learning from textbooks. A report on how to improve reading and writing skills is presented.

This graphic organizer is a hybrid between a Fishbone and a t-chart. Use this organizer when you are comparing and contrasting two texts with the same topic. Students identify who, what, when, where, why, and how of each article and then write a summary to compare/contrast the articles.

Discussion Webs are a during- reading or post- reading activities that encourage students to engage in the text and engage each other in thoughtful discussion. Discussion webs create a framework for students to explore texts and consider different sides of an issue in discussion before drawing conclusions. Discussion Webs are an alternative to teacher dominated discussions and help activate prior knowledge and make predictions about the text. This activity can also help student who are not comfortable participating in large group discussions talk with a partner or small group.

The objective of the Fishbone is to provide students with a structured outline to find significant information in a text selection and then organize a written response using the information. Students use six questions to help them find the important information: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? The students can also use this outline for future study.

Cause and effect can be one of the most challenging for students. These two organizers help students list one or more causes and resulting effects.

Use the T-Chart to compare and contrast two text on the same topic. Students can use lines/arrows or color coding to distinguish comparisons or differences. Students can use the Venn Diagram to write important information in each circle for that topic/character. The middle circle is used to write things that compare the two topics/characters.

Use this graphic organizer to help students outline a problem and the specific solutions/attempts to solve the problem.