Text complexity is often difficult to describe and even harder to attend to in meaningful ways in large-scale reading assessments. This paper provides a research synthesis shedding light on the impact of different text structures on overall text complexity.
What is Text Structures?
Text Structures are the organizational structures used within paragraphs or longer texts, appropriate to genre and purpose. Examples of text structures include: sequence/process, description, time order/chronology, proposition/support, compare/contrast, problem/solution, cause/effect, inductive/deductive, and investigation. Research in literacy learning over the past two decades indicates that: a) an understanding of various text structures and their purposes enhances student’s ability to comprehend what is read; and b) that some text structures are more easily learned and understood before other more complex structures.
Oct 02, 2008
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FAQs
Text structures can be taught by showing students examples of different text structures, using graphic organizersVisual frameworks that help structure thinking. , and by teaching signal words that are clues to the structures.
How do you assess text structure? ›
Consider these questions when thinking about structure:
- How is the text organized? (Does it seem logical? ...
- Is it divided into obvious sections? ...
- Does the author use comparison/contrast, explore cause and effect, or examine a process to present their ideas?
- Is there a lot of detail and description in the text?
Understanding the structure of a text improves comprehension by helping students organize big ideas and supporting details as they read, see how different pieces of information relate to each other, and get the “gist” (or main idea) of the entire passage.
What grade do you learn text structure? ›
As early as third grade, students are expected to recognize expository text structures such as the following: sequence, description, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution. The ability to identify and analyze these text structures in reading helps make expository text easier to understand.
What is text structure for elementary students? ›
Text structures refer to the way authors organize information in text. Recognizing the underlying structure of texts can help students focus attention on key concepts and relationships, anticipate what is to come, and monitor their comprehension as they read.
Why is text structure important for comprehension instruction? ›
Why is Text Structure Important? When readers identify and recognize the text structure of a text, this can significantly improve their comprehension and retention of information. Understanding the text structure can help students: Organize information and details they are learning in their minds while reading.
How do you assess and evaluate text information? ›
Evaluating a text begins with sum- marizing the main idea of the text in order to grasp what it is about. Then, you can begin to analyze various aspects of the text so you can understand it more fully. Finally, the information you learned through your evaluation can be used to develop your own thoughts about the text.
What are the three basic ways of determining text structure? ›
There are several different types of text structure, including:
- Chronological: discussing things in order.
- Cause and effect: explaining a cause and its results.
- Problem and solution: presenting a problem and offering a solution.
- Compare and contrast: discussing similarities and differences.
Analyzing text structure means identifying how a writer presents information and reflecting on the implications of that choice. If a narrative's events are chronological, it is a linear narrative.
How identifying and understanding text structures supports comprehension? ›
Comprehension: Discerning the overall organization and text structure of a text aids comprehension. This includes teaching students the goal and purpose of an introduction and a conclusion, which often identify for students the main topic(s) and central idea or theme of a text.
Examples of text structures include: sequence/process, description, time order/chronology, proposition/support, compare/contrast, problem/solution, cause/effect, inductive/deductive, and investigation.
Why is teaching students about text structures such as compare contrast or problem solution important for reading comprehension? ›
Understanding the text structure can help support students' comprehension because they will know what information they can expect to learn and where they will find the information in the text.
What are the 5 types of text structures and examples? ›
Text structure is an author's method of organizing the information (Figure 2). There are thought to be five common text structures: description, cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, and sequence (Meyer 1985).
What are examples of text structures? ›
Some common ones are: compare and contrast, problem and solution, chronological, cause and effect, descriptive, and process.
How to teach cause and effect text structure? ›
Ask students to share their thoughts on the text structure of the passage. Allow a few students to share their ideas. They should notice that there are a lot of cause-and-effect relationships and the words you highlighted are signal words that help them understand the text structure better.
How do you teach text structure cause and effect? ›
For cause and effect text, teachers should teach and model for students how to find out what happened and why. The teacher would first teach students the guiding questions of what, “What hap- pened?” and then follow up with why, “Why did it happen?” Asking what happened will support students to identify the effect.
How can a teacher use text structure to support comprehension? ›
By incorporating daily instruction on generating a main idea and summary using the structure of a text, teachers can help students develop logical connections between ideas in the text, leading to improved comprehension (Kendeou & van den Broek, 2007; Meyer, 1975).
How to teach problem solution text structure? ›
“When we teach problem and solution text structure,” she said, “we ask kids to look for a difficult situation and steps taken to resolve it. To help them understand, our graphic organizer uses a question mark, an arrow, and an exclamation point.” “Then kids study a sample paragraph,” she said.
How to teach expository text structure to facilitate reading comprehension? ›
Tell students that authors of informational texts use specific signal words and phrases for each rhetorical structure. After students are familiar with signal words and phrases, ask them to find these clues in structure of each text through signal words and phrases.
