2.2 Reading Informational Text

Text Features of Informational Text

Informational text uses features to help readers locate and understand information. A Georgia P-5 teacher explicitly teaches these features because students do not transfer them from literary reading.

• Headings and subheadings — announce the topic of a section; help readers preview and locate.
• Captions — short explanations under photographs, maps, or charts.
• Glossary — alphabetized subject-specific vocabulary with definitions, usually at the back.
• Index — alphabetized topics with page numbers at the back of a book.
• Bold print — signals key vocabulary, often words that also appear in the glossary.
• Diagrams and labels — visual representations of parts or processes (a labeled cross-section of a volcano, a butterfly life cycle).
• Table of contents — chapter titles and page numbers at the front.
• Sidebars and text boxes — supplementary information set apart from the main text.

A GACE item may present a textbook page and ask which feature a student should use to find the definition of metamorphosis — the answer is the glossary, not the index.

Expository Text Structures

Authors of informational text choose a structure to fit their purpose. Students must recognize the structure to anticipate what comes next and to organize notes.

Teaching sequence explicitly — including time-order words and procedural steps in how-to texts — supports both informational reading and writing standards.

Evaluating Sources at the Elementary Level

Even young students can learn to ask evaluative questions about a source:

1. Who wrote it? Is the author an expert or an eyewitness?
2. When was it published? Is the information current enough for the topic (a 1998 book on Pluto is out of date)?
3. For what audience was it written? A children's website simplifies differently than a museum exhibit.
4. What is the author's purpose? To inform, to persuade, to entertain?
5. Does the evidence support the claims? Are there facts, examples, and cited sources, or just assertions?

A third-grade teacher might display two websites about the rainforest — one from a university, one from a tourism company — and guide students to notice which one cites scientists and which one promotes tours.

Primary versus Secondary Sources

This distinction is testable on GACE 702:

• Primary source — an original, firsthand record. Examples: a diary entry from a Civil War soldier, a photograph of the 1963 March on Washington, a recorded interview with a local historian, an original letter, the text of a speech.
• Secondary source — an account created after the fact by someone who was not present. Examples: a textbook chapter on the Civil War, a biography of Martin Luther King Jr., a documentary using footage and commentary.

Elementary students can sort sources: a journal entry from a Georgia peanut farmer is primary; a chapter in Georgia: A History about peanut farming is secondary.

Integrating Information from Multiple Texts

Georgia Standards of Excellence in grades 3-5 expect students to integrate information from two or more texts on the same topic. Teacher moves include:

• Side-by-side reading — students read a short article and a picture book on the same topic and note what each adds.
• Corroboration — where do the sources agree? Disagree? Which claim is better supported?
• Synthesis — students write or speak using evidence drawn from both sources, citing which source each piece of evidence came from.
• Accounting for differences — students explain why two sources might present different information (different audience, different publication date, different purpose).

A common GACE scenario: a teacher gives students a primary source letter and a secondary source textbook entry about the same historical event. The strongest teacher move asks students to compare the details each source provides and discuss why the accounts differ — not which source to memorize.

Building Informational Reading Across Grades K-5

Informational reading expectations grow across the elementary band, and a Georgia teacher must match the task to the grade-level standard:

• Kindergarten and grade 1 — with prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details and use illustrations to describe the text.
• Grades 2-3 — use text features (captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes) to locate key facts and identify the main purpose of a text.
• Grades 4-5 — determine the main idea, summarize, explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points, and integrate information from several texts on the same subject.

A GACE item may present a grade-level text and a proposed teacher question; the correct answer matches the task to the grade-level standard — asking a first grader to use the index is developmentally inappropriate, while asking a fifth grader to integrate two sources on the same topic is on-level.

Common Classroom Routines

Three routines make informational comprehension durable:

1. Text-feature scavenger hunt — students locate headings, captions, bold print, and glossary entries in a trade book, then explain how each feature helped them find or understand information.
2. Structure sort — students read short paragraphs and sort them by structure (description, cause-effect, compare-contrast, problem-solution, sequence), defending each sort with the signal words they noticed.
3. Two-source synthesis — students read a primary and a secondary source on the same topic, complete a T-chart, and write a paragraph using evidence from both.

These routines target the integration-of-knowledge-and-ideas standards emphasized on the GACE 702 ELA testlet.