Teaching Nonfiction Text Features

Common Core Standards for Grade 1

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.5

Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.

The Common Core standards for Reading Informational Text include having students know and use text features.  In this lesson, I begin building students' knowledge of text features. First,  we watch a video that introduces text features.  Who doesn't love a cowboy lassoing some text features?

Next, we read an article together and label the text features.  I love these adorable lightbulb sticky notes!  I chose an article on Animal Classification because it contained numerous features and also for student interest.  (Lately, we have been asking lots of questions about what makes a mammal a mammal, etc!)

Now, it's time for pairs of students to give it a try!  Here are some pictures and videos showing the classroom and check-ins!

In closing, we come back to the rug for a discussion.  Here's how our discussion started:

Next, students shared questions they came up with and other text features they found!

As a home-school connection, students put these pages in their Study Buddy.  The Study Buddy is a binder that goes home each night and comes back each day.  The "Strategies" section of the Study Buddy has ways parents can support students at home with reading by reinforcing what we are learning in class!

Check out this free version on TeachersPayTeachers.com!

After this lesson, I post the article we read together and some descriptions of text features in our classroom library for reference.  Our next lesson will get into the purpose of text features!