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Close Reading Text Features

Close Reading Part 5: Text Features

Next up on this fantastic journey known as close reading is that of text features. Click on the picture for a text features freebie!

Text features are important to notice, point out, and discuss during close reads (and reading in general). They helps up to identify important information as well as the big ideas that the author is focusing on. Text features are great for helping our kiddos pay attention to the important details. I really like discussing text features because, if done right, they can make information more accessible and easier to understand than just straight content.

What exactly is meant by text features? Text features are things like:

* table of contents

* glossary

* title page

* index

* illustrations/photographs

* captions

* headings

* subheadings

* bolded words

* italicized words

* charts, tables, graphs

* textboxes

* lists and bulleted items

I found a couple of videos on the internet that are fun introductions to text features. The first one is done by a class that made a video (if you can’t make it all the way through, don’t worry, I didn’t either!) The second one is by LearnZillion. LearnZillion is a great site that has a lot of videos that can be used on tons of topics.

Pointing out text features can really force our kids back into the text. It helps them pay attention to things they would normally skim over. Text features can also be used to determine the author’s purpose and their point of view on a topic.

The lovely people at my state office of education came up with this chart for using text features. It helps kids go through books and see what text features are included (not every feature will be included in every book) and how each text feature can help them. Click on the picture for the free download!

https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0BxG8ilhsy9rPaHJidUpjN2hBLWM

Short, sweet and to the point! Thanks for stopping by!

PEACE, LOVE, AND STICKY NOTES

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Cassie Tabrizi
Cassie Tabrizi
After being in elementary education for 14 years, and as founder of Create-Abilities, Cassie is passionate about helping fellow educators empower their teaching.
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