5 Keys to reading nonfiction: learning about text features and structure gives students new strategies for comprehension.

research has shown that your students' ability to comprehend nonfiction or expository text--text that explains facts and concepts--is critical to their success on standardized tests, in their future education, and beyond.

But reading nonfiction can be really difficult. Readers are called on to comprehend ideas that may be very challenging, and also to extrapolate and remember the main ideas in order to integrate them with prior knowledge. And nonfiction also requires readers to uncover organizational patterns in order to comprehend the relationship of ideas. It's no surprise, then, that the idea of teaching these abstract thought processes can often be intimidating.

Successful readers of nonfiction follow the same basic pattern every time they face a new text. This is a learned strategy, and it's one that you can implement in your classroom by emphasizing the five keys to reading nonfiction--text features, text structure, background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension--every time you introduce a new passage, texbook chapter, or nonfiction book to your students.

Identify Text Features

Different types of nonfiction text contain common features that readers can recognize and use to help them understand the information being presented. For example, maps usually feature a legend, a compass rose, and a coordinate grid. So whenever you present a new type of nonfiction, discuss the text's typical features with your students and explain how they can use them to find and understand information. The reproducible bookmarks on page 6 summarize key features of several types of nonfiction texts and can be used by students as tools for review.

Teach Text Structure

To comprehend a text, students need to recognize how ideas are organized, or the structure of the text. One effective way to help students identify nonfiction structures is to teach words and phrases that frequently signal organization. For example, if students know that words such as like, unlike, and in contrast are often used when one thing is being compared to another, they can readily spot the author's intention and they'll be better equipped to understand the text as a whole. Your students' own informational writing will also benefit when their knowledge of various text structures increases.

Activate Background Knowledge

Perhaps the most important habit of reading nonfiction is connecting new information to what we already know. One way to get students to start making these key connections is to use a Smart Chart. A Smart Chart is similar to a three-column KWL chart that has the three headings: "What We Know," "What We Want to Know" and "What We Learned." The difference is that a Smart Chart features a fourth column, labeled "Background."

After completing the "What We Know" column as a class, share facts that your students did not list but which will be useful for them to keep in mind while reading the text. Explain where you got the additional information and discuss where students might look for this background material if they were approaching the text on their own. The new information is what goes in the "Background" column. This addition to the KWL chart puts new knowledge in context--the first step in achieving success as a nonfiction reader.

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Pre-Teach Vocabulary

One of the biggest challenges facing beginning nonfiction readers can be the specialized vocabulary it often requires. Many teachers find it useful to pre-teach a set of key vocabulary words that students will need to know in order to understand a text, and that they most likely won't be able to determine from context alone. However, it is very often tricky to determine the "just right" words to teach. Reading experts have developed four questions that can help you decide which words your students should learn before reading (see the box below). If you answer "yes" to all four of the questions, the word is a good choice for pre-teaching. The best ways of teaching vocabulary will encourage your students to become independent word learners.

Emphasize Comprehension 

The final key for helping students to read nonfiction is teaching them to self-check for understanding. Strong nonfiction readers do continually ask themselves whether they have really understood the main ideas of what they have read. Beginning readers should practice checking their comprehension by putting what they have learned into writing. For an after-reading activity that works as a comprehension check for all grades, give students the main idea of a text and ask them to write down the details that support it. This strategy mirrors the thought process that more advanced readers find automatic.

As successful nonfiction readers, we instinctively bring our background knowledge of the topic, of text features and structure, and of vocabulary to whatever kind of expository text we encounter, from census information to driving directions. We also repeatedly ask ourselves if we "get it." You can help your students gain this kind of intuition by making explicit the keys to reading nonfiction whenever you use it in the classroom. And your students will draw on these skills throughout their lives.

RELATED ARTICLE: To choose vocabulary words, ask yourself:

1 Is the word critical to comprehension of the content?

2 Is the word beyond students' ability to figure out by using structural analysis or context clues?

3 Can I use this word to develop strategies for helping students independently figure out other unfamiliar words (such as using context, structural analysis, or the dictionary)?

4 Is the word useful beyond the specific selection we are reading? Will it come up in other lessons or on a standardized test?

Adapted by Hannah Trierweiler from Teaching Students to Read Non-Fiction, by Alice Boynton and Wiley Blevins (Scholastic, 2003). To order, call 1-800-SCHOLASTIC.