Text Features and Their Purposes

Introduction

• Show students a page from a nonfiction text that has a few examples of text features, such as photographs, captions, headings, bold print, and labels.
• Ask students to turn to a partner and describe what they see on the page. (Note: Keep the question open-ended and accept all students' answers at this point even though the words they use may not be precise.) Invite a few students to share their observations and record their responses on the board.
• Tell students that the observations they mentioned fall into a category known as text features. Explain that text features are ways authors give their readers more information about the topic that are visually interesting. If possible, rename students' observations into the correct terminology of the text feature (e.g. If a student said, "I see words under the picture," you would explain that they are referring to the caption and photograph.)
• Do a choral reading of the language objective with students.