Text Features Help us Find Information When We Read!

My 5th graders have been studying text features! We started off last week by looking at an article about a giant toad that had no text features, only words, lots of words! Then we looked at the same article with text features added and made a chart of the differences we saw!
 I got the lesson plan from the Link 2 Literacy blog, you can find it HERE!

I paired them up and gave each group a paragraph from an article about firefighters (I got the article from the above link). Their task was to add appropriate text features to make the article more interesting and easier to read.

They used the computers and books to find pictures, maps, charts, graphs, and inserts to add to their piece of the article. Each pair had to add a heading to their section and find one word that should be bold. They loved it!!! Everyone worked hard all week long to find just the right elements.....



 At the end of the week I gave them each a yellow index card with the name of a text feature on it and the question "how does it help me" they had to answer the question on the card. We placed their paragraphs together to create one long article and then they added the index cards with arrows pointing to the specific text features. The finished product is proudly displayed outside our classroom!
This turned out to be a great activity, the students were so engaged!! This week we are digging deeper into specific features and how to find important information using them. We are reading charts, graphs, and maps. It really helped that they now have a solid understanding of what text features are and how they can help us find information when we read!
 
In other news, I have a question of all of you! I have $200 to spend and I just can't think of what to spend it on, I have a lot of games and activities already, I just don't know what 5th and 6th graders really enjoy so what would you buy??

AND......I reached 1000 followers!! WHOOOHOOOO! I am so excited that so many of you care to read about what I do as a teacher. I love my job and I love sharing with others! Look for a fabulous giveaway in the next couple days and a couple of huge freebies this Friday! Thank You for following me!!!

1 comment

  1. Love your title! And the way you compared info without text features to info with text features. What a great idea. Wonder if I could make it work for my 2nd graders?
    Sara

    ReplyDelete

Back to Top