Chapter 15: Informational Reading

Teaching Reading Sourcebook 2nd edition

Informational Text Informational or expository text tends to

be more complex, diverse, and challenging than narrative text.

It is important to integrate expository texts in language arts instruction and integrate comprehension into content-area teaching.

Types of informational texts include instructions, brochures, catalogues directions, recipes, manuals, signs magazine and news articles, websites, textbooks

Informational Text Structure

Informational text structures include Description: explains or defines topic or concept Compare-Contrast: presents similarities and

differences Cause-Effect: presents reasons an event

happened and its results Problem/Solution: poses a problem and suggests

possible solutions Time Order (Sequence): groups ideas by order or

time

Graphic Organizers

Concrete representations of informational text structure provide students a means to record information about underlying text structure; see how concepts fit within the structures; focus on the most important ideas; examine relationships among concepts; recall key text information; write well-organized summaries.

Considerate Texts

Three overlapping features characterize and help to define considerate texts. Structural cues: introductions, summaries, titles,

headings, charts, tables, type font, bullets etc. Coherence: clarity of writing in explicitly stated

main ideas, information supports development of main idea, logical order of events and ideas, use of signal words, precise language, smooth transitions

Audience appropriateness: conceptual density or the number of new concepts introduced

Strategy Application

Recognizing informational text structure can be developed through detecting signal words; noting graphic features (e.g. headings, tables, etc.); creating graphic organizers to lay out or organize

information. Monitoring comprehension when reading to

learn new information requires metacognitive awareness knowledge about ourselves as learners knowledge of the tasks we face knowledge of the strategies we use

Strategy Application

Connecting to World Knowledge Students learn new information by connecting it to

knowledge from their prior experience. Readers’ world knowledge shapes the way they

perceive information in text. The K-W-L procedure can be used to tap prior

knowledge. K- assessing what students know W- assessing what students want to learn L- noting what students have learned from the text

Strategy Application

Predicting Students make predictions about informational

text by scanning structural cues that indicate its organization.

Students make predictions about the purpose of the text as a whole, as well as the functions of various parts of the text.

Previewing the text in this way organizes students’ thinking, preparing them to learn new information presented in the text.

Strategy Application

Asking Questions Students need instruction in how to ask higher-level

questions to help them learn from informational text. In the strategy elaborative interrogation, students ask

why a fact makes sense, which helps them explain or expand text information and better remember it.

Answering Questions The QAR framework is a type of question-answering

instruction that focuses on a three-way relationship among question types: 1.Right There 2.Think and Search 3. On My Own 4. Author and Me.

Strategy Application Constructing Mental Images

Readers can create pictures in their minds, which depict the content of the text.

Think aloud models help students to learn the thinking processes needed to visualize.

Summarizing strategies Paragraph shrinking: identify main ideas: shrink it into one

sentence 10 words or less Collaborative Strategic Reading: substitute a more general

term for a list of terms; delete redundant information; delete information that is not central to overall meaning; select or create a topic sentence

Reader Response

Even when reading informational text, students use their existing knowledge to respond to the author’s point of view and bias. Discussion-Oriented Instruction such as

Questioning the Author (QtA) teaches students to question what they read, to think, to probe, to associate, and to critique.

Writing for Content-Area Learning provides opportunities for response to informational text by writing reviews of texts, making improvements to texts, and creating their own informational texts.

Motivation and Engagement

Engaged Readers are motivated; are knowledge driven; are socially interactive; believe in their reading skills; persist in the face of difficulty; possess a variety of cognitive comprehension

strategies.

Web-Based Text

The benefits of Web-based text Readers can follow links to definitions, background,

and more detailed explanations to support comprehension.

Readers learn more easily from Web-based than printed text as long as options for navigation and browsing are limited.

Electronic text can be more motivating especially for struggling readers.

Reading on the Web requires additional demands on the reader in specialized strategy application.

When to Teach

Primary grade students need increased instructional time with informational text. Young children often prefer age-appropriate

informational text, which builds world knowledge. After grade 3, reading content-area texts

becomes increasingly important to expand their knowledge.

It is critical to balance and integrate explicit comprehension strategies instruction with emphasis on the content of the text.

When to Assess and Intervene

It is necessary to assess comprehension processes as well as outcomes

When assessment reveals that students are misusing or not using a specific strategy, additional instructional support is required

Comprehension Assessment Response Formats include cloze: maze CBM open ended/ multiple choice questions retelling think aloud protocol