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CONTENT-AREA READING
SESSION 3 | Grades K-12 / ELL | Handout
Move beyond identifying text features
Identify 3 purposes text features serve
Introduce the 3 ways
text features help readers
To better understand
To find | To teach new
Plan instruction to reveal what, where, and why.
Provide more than a definition of WHAT the text feature looks like. Describe WHERE it is often found in relationship to the main text and WHY would an author include it or a reader utilize it.
Purchase the digital download of Purposeful Parts, which includes visual graphics for each text feature.
Apply text features BEFORE reading
Scope out and steal information about the topic.
Emphasize the “scope out and steal” analogy of a thief by providing students with masks printed onto cardstock.
Students communicate what info they learned from a particular feature with Information T.H.I.E.V.E.S.
Readers question & predict.
Literacy eLessons – Preview the text before reading.
Apply text features DURING reading
Demonstrate how text features support comprehension.
Model these reader tools using the Scholastic News “The Problem with Plastics” article.
