4th Grade Langauge Arts

Informational Text

Unit 5


Unit 5: Informational Text

When you read a non-fiction work of literature, have you ever considered what type of informational text it was? When reading to write a research paper, do you ever consider what reading skills you must know first? Finding the differences between informational texts is important when trying to understand the purpose of the author's writing, and is also useful when you need to know what kind of book you're looking for. The main types of texts are historical, scientific, and textual. You must also know important informational text structures, which we'll be covering in this unit.

Historical Text

Historical text tells readers about important people, places, events, and dates from the past. Readers learn what happened and why it happened. Historical text is informational text and is read to gain knowledge.

Scientific Text

Scientific text is informational text. It includes many facts, ideas, concepts, and procedures. Scientific text is read to gain knowledge in a particular area of science.

Technical Text

Technical text is read for the purpose of learning more about a subject or understand how to complete a task. Technical text is a type of informational text that explains the steps for how to do something. When you read technical text, pay attention to the information that tells you what you need and what steps to take.

These links are very good at reviewing and helping students understand more about events, procedures, and concepts in an informational text. Click any link to begin!

https://app.educationgalaxy.com/practice/practicetest.aspx?topicId=19302

http://www.learningfarm.com/web/practicePassThrough.cfm?TopicID=150

Academic Language

  • Academic words are those which appear with high frequency in English-language academic texts.

  • Certain words are commonly associated with specific content topics.

  • The context in which a word is used can affect its meaning.

  • Facts are true pieces of information about something or someone.

  • Feelings are opinions about people, places, things, or events based more on emotions than facts.

  • Opinions are beliefs or views about an issue based solely on personal judgments.

  • Certain words are used to describe the spatial relationship among objects and events.

Check out this link to learn more about the academic language: https://learnzillion.com/lesson_plans/6294-determine-the-meaning-of-domain-specific-words/#fndtn-lesson

Reasons & Evidence

An important skill you learn about informational reading involves analyzing authors' reasoning and the evidence they provide to support those reasons. After analyzing an authors' reasons based on the evidence provided, readers like you can decide if they support or reject those reasons.

Using Multiple Pieces of Evidence

Often times when reading nonfiction pieces of literature in order to write a research paper, writers use multiple sources in order to gather as much information as possible. With this topic, we cover how to use multiple pieces of evidence in order to write about your subject knowledgeably.

Text Features

Text features are to non-fiction what story elements are to fiction. Text features help the reader make sense of what they are reading and are the building blocks for text structure. Text features go hand-in-hand with comprehension. For example, if the author wants a reader to understand where a country is in the world, then providing a map helps the reader visualize and understand the importance of that country’s location. Text features also help readers determine what is important to the text and to them. Think about it without a table of contents or an index, readers can spend wasted time flipping through the book to find the information they need. Special print helps draw the attention of the reader to important or key words and phrases.

Common Text Features

  • Captions: Help you better understand a picture or photographs.

  • Comparisons: sentences help you to picture something {Example: A whale
    shark is a little bit bigger than a school bus.}

  • Glossary: Helps you define words that are in the book

  • Graphics: Charts, graphs, or cutaways are used to help you understand what
    the author is trying to tell you

  • Illustrations/Photographs: Help you to know exactly what something looks
    like

  • Index: This is an alphabetical list of ideas that are in the book. It tells
    you what page the idea is on.

  • Labels: These help you identify a picture or a photograph and its parts

  • Maps: help you to understand where places are in the world

  • Special Print: When a word is bold, in italics, or underlined, it is an
    important word for you to know

  • Subtitles: These headings help you to know what the next section will be
    about

  • Table of Contents: Helps you identify key topics in the book in the order
    they are presented

Text Structures

Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized. This strategy helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details; a cause and then its effects; and/or different views of a topic. When you can recognize common text structures it can help you comprehend the material.

Sometimes authors use more than one text structure in a piece. For example, some texts are organized as a chronological sequence of events, while others compare two or more things. Students can learn to identify a text’s structure by paying attention to signal words. Signal words link ideas together, show relationships, and indicate transitions from one idea to the next. Each text structure is associated with different signal words.

First Hand Account

A first-hand account (retelling) is one in which you are directly involved; you have personal experience.This is a description or explanation of an event, told by a person who witnessed or was a part of the event.

The passage is written using words like “I” and “we.” The author may include his or her feelings and thoughts on the subject.

Second Hand Account

A second-hand account is a description or explanation of an event, told by someone who knows of the event but was not actually there, you do not have direct experience; the information you have obtained is from a variety of sources.

The events the author describes have happened to someone else. The author mostly includes information and facts on the subject.

Why Are There Two?

Different authors often write about the same event or idea differently. When you read two different accounts or descriptions of the same subject, you can learn different things. This way, you can compare and contrast the authors’ points, or their ideas and information, on the subject.

When comparing and contrasting two passages, look for:

  • The most important point in each text.

  • The most important details in each text.

  • The ideas only found in one text and not in another.

  • Whether a text has more facts and details or feelings and thoughts.

  • Whether a text uses the pronouns “I” or “we".

Click on this link to practice comparing and contrasting the two: https://www.learningfarm.com/web/practicePassThrough.cfm?TopicID=157