Understanding Nonfiction Texts is Crucial for Student Development
What is Informational Text?
Informational text is any nonfiction piece or work that informs readers of the natural or social world. This genre uses an informative and objective tone, aiming to describe and communicate event details and facts without elaborate language; the goal is to inform the reader as quickly and efficiently as possible. Think about how news reporters speak on the air: it’s short, quick, and to the point. This is similar to how information text reads.
Some examples are information text are:
- Website articles
- Newspaper
- Biographies
- Instructional manuals
When you are reading an informational text, you can usually detect authors using one of the following methods or structures to communicate their topic.
- Description
- Sequence/Instruction/Process
- Cause/Effect
- Compare/Contrast
- Problem/Solution
Explaining how to spot these methods to students will show them just how prevalent informational text is around them. However, it’s not enough to just teach students about informational text: it needs to be a part of our curriculum and daily classrooms.
Why Should We Teach Informational Texts?
We engage with informational text every day, whether it’s reading the news, looking at a graphic, or reading a table of contents. It’s critical to teach students how to engage with these texts in the classroom, so they are able to work with more advanced texts on their own in the future.
1. Informational Texts are Critical to the Information Age
As Scholastic explains, informational text is “real-life reading.” This genre starts conversations, informs us of current events, and teaches us about the social and natural world around us; however, despite its prevalence in the world, many children and adults struggle to understand this genre of writing because of a lack of exposure to it.
One study found that informational text made up less than 10% of classroom libraries. This is an issue that needs attention, especially as we teach students who are growing up in the “Information Age,” a society that is moving away from literary text and towards details, data, knowledge, and technology. When we incorporate informational texts in the classroom alongside literary texts, we are preparing them to succeed in a world centered on this type of text.
2. Students Enjoy Informational Texts
Our students think about the world around them– watching adults, making their own conclusion, and asking questions. Informational texts can be a helpful tool to guide students through these questions, while also teaching students how to seek answers to their questions in a responsible way.
Teachers might also find their students more motivated to read informational texts by picking topics their students find interesting and pertinent to their lives. Studies have confirmed that reading skills increase when readers are interested in their topic. Because of how broad the genre of informational texts is, it’s easy to find subjects that interest your students. As you bring informational texts into your classroom, consider incorporating a variety of topics to show students how versatile these texts can be.
At the same time, selecting relevant and current topics to teach will intrigue students, because they are probably already hearing about them and want to know more. Incorporating daily use of informational texts will equip students to understand the world around them, and can stimulate creativity content and activities.
What to Look for in Informational Texts
When looking for informational texts to teach, there are several standards to keep in mind that can help narrow down your selection to texts that will be educational, informative, and appropriate for your students. The National Association of Elementary School Principals explains that when looking for informational texts to use, teachers and parents should look for the following:
- Guides, Table of Contents, and Indexes to help students learn how to use these textual guides.
- Illustrations that expand meaning, such as infographics, tables, graphs, and drawings
- Organizational and visual aids that allow students to locate information
- Content and topics that are timely released and described accurately
The University of Maine’s College of Education and Humanities echoes many of these standards for informational texts, adding that teachers should also look into the qualifications of the text’s author, and make sure the text appeals to the age group it will be read by.
Looking for Somewhere to Start?
When looking to teach informational texts for 5th through 12th grade school students, The Juice is a great place to start. Our daily newsletters consist of five stories paired with standards-based questions, and cover relevant, current events that educate students on the most important stories of the day.
With content ranging from short stories to fun STEAM-based videos, our newsletters engage students and make it easy to teach informational texts. Reading The Juice together will start conversations about current events, social studies, and the natural world, and will lay a strong foundation for students to build on as they enter an information age.
