Informational Text is explanatory in nature and conveys factual information meant to increase an individual’s knowledge of subject matter. Varieties include: textbooks, technical texts (such as how-to’s), manuals, newspaper and magazine articles, reports, summaries, and online resources, as well as books about science, history, social studies, and the arts.
Content learning also requires an understanding of academic language. Academic language refers to the words that are not typically used in everyday conversations, but rather vocabulary that relates to academic content. Tier 2 words are used across subject areas, such as alternate, sent, temporary, and frequent. Tier 3 words are content specific words that are critical to understanding the new concepts being learned from an informational text.
Examples of common Academic Task Vocabulary: Circle, Explain, List, Analyze, Prove, Summarize, Infer, Compare, Contrast, Define, Predict, Demonstrate, Identify, Critique, Persuade.
Questions to ask yourself about selecting Informational Text for Students:
- Is the writing style of the text appealing to the students?
- Are the activities motivating? Will they make students want to pursue the topic further?
- Does the text clearly show how the knowledge being learned might be used by the learner in the future?
- Does the text provide positive and motivating models for both sexes as well as for all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups?
- Does the text help students generate interest as they relate experiences and develop visual and sensory images?
When teachers judge instructional content area materials and informational text, they frequently assess readability. Readability formulas can help estimate the difficulty of any text, but they are not intended to be precise indicators. They typically involve a measure of sentence length and word length to ascertain a grade-level score for text materials. The score is meant to indicate the reading achievement level students would need to comprehend the material. More recently, text complexity has been measured by Lexile scales that use word frequency and sentence length to determine the difficulty of a text of the level on which a child can read.
Literature Circles typically involve grouping students and having them assume roles as they read a story. They can be effectively modified as a cooperative learning strategy in which informational text is shared in small groups; hence the name Informational text circles. When given a section or sections of text to read in small groups, each student assumes a role or purpose for reading and is responsible for reporting to the rest of the group regarding that role after a prescribed amount of time. Following the reading, each student typically shares the information they have learned based on the assigned task.
Jigsaw is another cooperative learning strategy in which students assume roles as they read and share their understanding of the content in small groups. Each group consists of 3-5 students of mixed ability, each student is given a copy of the same informational text or sections of a textbook to read. All groups will read and record information based off their section of the text to share with other groups. One expert from each group goes and shares the information with other groups.
Idea Sketches are graphic organizers that students complete in small groups as they read informational text. The purpose of the activity is for students to read a section of the text and focus on main ideas and supporting details, adding information to the organizers as they read.
The use of children’s literature and nonfiction trade books in elementary and middle school classrooms extends and enriches information provided in content area textbooks. Literature and nonfiction trade books have the potential to capture children’s imagination and interest in people, places, events, and ideas. And they also have the potential to develop in-depth understanding in ways that textbooks aren’t equipped to do.
It’s important for teachers to use a variety of genres when considering informational texts; it is recommended to use text sets that include storybook formats. Text sets are groups of books that share related concepts in different formats.
Generally there are three types of informational or nonfiction text types:
- In Narrative informational texts the author typically tells a fictional story that conveys factual information.
- Expository informational books do not contain stories; they contain information that typically follows specific text structures such as description, sequence, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, and problem solving. They often contain a table of contents, glossary, a list of illustrations, charts, and graphs.
- Mixed-text informational books sometimes referred to as combined-text trade books, narrate stories and include factual information in the surrounding text.
5 A’s of informational book selections: Authority, Author, Appropriateness, Artistry, Appearance.
Idea Circles are small peer-led group discussions of concepts fueled by multiple text sources. They are composed of 3-6 student. After introducing students to a concept, they each read different informational books, bringing unique information to the idea circle. In the circle, they discuss facts about this concept and relations among the facts and explanations.
Classroom Application:
I love text sets! I think they are such a wonderful way to get students interested in information that they might originally not have been due to lack of understanding or flat out it being boring. I am a big fan of expository informational texts because they not only give student and understanding of what a table of contents, glossary, along with lots of different text sizes and information. I think it would be fun to take a group of second graders and have them read an Expository informational text on animals. I would separate them into groups and have each group read a chapter from the text then share their ideas with the class using the Jigsaw technique. Then at the end each group could present one fact about each chapter they learned from their classmates.
virginiawilson 