I Spy Informational Text Features

Non-Fiction Text Features: Are you ready to teach about informational text features in a fun, engaging, and meaningful way?

The activities included in this file will turn your students into text detectives as they investigate the different text features, their importance, and how to use them use them to understand the text.

The unit begins with 8 different, detailed mini-lessons for you to teach your kiddos about captions and photographs, table of contents, headings and subheadings, index, glossary, charts/tables and graphs, types of print and pronunciation, and diagrams.

Then, there are 8 different “missions” that each text detective must investigate, in order to earn their VIP badge from the Chief of Detectives (that’s YOU!)

Your little detectives will investigate the following text features in this unit: photographs and captions, headings and subtitles, charts/tables/graphs, special type of print, glossary, index, table of contents.

Mission One: Informational text and literature Venn diagram- Text detectives compare and contrast two books on the same topic (one literature, one informational text).

Mission Two: Purpose of text features anchor chart- Text detectives will identify each text features and its purpose. Common Core State Standards number 5 and number 7 within the Reading Informational Text strand state the teaching of each text feature and its function.

Mission Three: Text features flip book- Text detectives are assigned a very important mission. Students must find examples of each text feature in their own books, earning a “private detective of text features” badge upon completion.

Mission Four: Private detective of text features badges- Text detectives will wear with pride!

Mission Five: “I Spy With My Private Eye…” The Chief of Detectives will love this interactive lesson as much as your little detectives. Sticky notes are used to track down the different text features during guided reading groups or independent reading.

Mission Six: Text Features Bingo cards- Let your text detectives enjoy a fun game of Bingo, all while reinforcing the important vocabulary words from this unit.

Mission Seven: Text features name tag and posters- The Chief of Detectives can print the text features posters to display as anchor charts throughout the unit. Little detectives can use a informational text features nametags (smaller version of the posters) as a reference throughout the unit.

Mission Eight: Create an information book- The Chief of Detectives has prepared his/her little detectives for their end-of-unit project. Students will apply what they learned about each text feature to create their very own, one-of-a-kind information book. There is a rubric and note to send home included in this file.

The activities in this resource can be a complement to your guided reading groups, reading workshop mini-lessons, or read a-louds.

This file is also part of my Reading Workshop BUNDLE

Reading Workshop BUNDLE

If you have any questions, please contact me prior to purchasing the file.