Terrific Text Features Activities for 2nd Grade
Do you do text features activities in your spare time? Hmmm, I think you do! Have you ever driven somewhere new? I know how to read the signs and follow the directions, but I don’t like to do it often! Could you imagine how hard it would be without the street signs telling us which directions to go?! The signs are like real life text features.
See what I did there? I LOVE connecting reading strategies to real life situations to help students see how mastering the skill helps them succeed in reading and in life!
Text features activities can be so much fun in primary grades! They can also be really overwhelming so let’s talk about how to break down and support students in learning this important skill.
Text Features Activities for Meaningful Lessons
- Pick an order that you will focus on the text features so that you can teach them one a time. Think about if your students are already familiar with any of the text features such as a title or photograph. It is helpful to start with these to build understanding of what a text feature is and how it helps us understand the information in the book.
2. Use anchor charts to help students remember the name and purpose of each text feature. The text feature printable posters I use are shown below. After introducing familiar terms like title and photograph I move into text features such as glossary and index that students need to be taught how to use.
3. It is really beneficial to use think alouds during shared reading time to model noticing the text feature in the context of a book and thinking about what it helps you learn. I share my favorite books for teaching text features in this blog post!
Sentence Frames
Using a sentence frame to model and encourage students to discuss text features is the KEY to cultivating true understanding in our students. This is where Tito The Text Feature Explorer (a character from my Comprehension Crew resource) plays such a crucial role in being a concrete representation of the skill and how to implement it.
4. The more text features activities that the students engage in the better! As they practice recognizing and using the text features they will get more and more confident. It is helpful to get students excited about finding a variety of text features in the books they are reading. I use a tally chart to count how many we find as we do our text features activities!
5. Use my Comprehension Crew character Tito the Text Feature Explorer to help students know how to identify, talk about, and use text features in a fun, memorable way! The concrete connection of the astronaut using signs in space to navigate like students will use text features in books to navigate the information makes an engaging lesson structure that the students LOVE! The resource has everything that you need to teach text structures!
6. Differentiate practice with task cards so students are not overwhelmed looking through a whole book! The photograph and short text options allow you to encourage students confidence and ability to find text features independently.
Tips for Fun Text Features Activities
- choose mentor texts that are really engaging to students
- look for high interest texts
- photograph heavy texts are great in the beginning to discuss what that text feature shows you that you can’t get from words
- emphasize the value of different types of text
- revisit the book over and over noticing new text features and their value as you learn more
- compare and contrast the same text feature over multiple books- discuss how it looks, what information it gives, how often it is used etc.
- send students on scavenger hunts through large text books to find all the text features
Head over to this blog post to see my favorite books for teaching text features!
Read more about how I teach other non- fiction reading strategies:
