The 4 Best Text Features To Teach First
Sometimes looking onto the unit of text features can seem like a long road ahead, but I am here to give you the map to know where to start!
The First 4 Text Features
1. title
2. photograph
3. heading
4. table of contents
These are always the first 4 text features that I teach my students. It does not matter the grade level or time of year! Let me explain to you why!
The beginning lessons and time spent on a new skill, sets the tone for what students think of that skill.
The first year I taught a text feature unit, I put up about 20 poster anchor charts. My wall looked beautiful! Perfect printables on a pretty bulletin board, each one showing an example and definition of a specific text feature. My students were SO OVERWHELMED. To them, they all looked the same. Before we even started learning, they had a mental block that text features were hard and they had no interest.
That is what made me realize how important it is (with all skills) to make sure those initial lessons build confidence and interest in learning more.
These first four text features are probably most familiar to your students, so they will feel success in identifying and learning about them.
Keep reading for a FREEBIE!
Reasons These 4 Are Fabulous & Should Be Taught First
- your students have seen them before- whether they know the names of them or not they have seen photographs or the cover of a magazine with a title
- each of these text features has a very distinct look to them- easier to recognize and remember
- their purpose is straightforward and lays the foundation for understanding how text features function within a text
Ideas to Practice These 4 Text Features
- The most meaningful way to teach and practice identifying these (and any) text features are in context with shared reading. An interactive read aloud gives you the perfect opportunity to think aloud noticing each text feature and how it works in the context of that specific text.
- I love using task cards as a quick practice or assessment with my students. My task card resource has many differentiated options to choose if you want to check your students understanding of identifying, interpreting, analyzing, etc.
These FREE puzzles are a perfect way to practice each specific text feature! Download them now, your students will have so much fun using these over and over!
So now you know where to start, but where do you go from here? I created a FREE GUIDE full of tips and tricks for your text feature lessons and activities!
