Non Fiction Text Features

Are you struggling to find engaging and meaningful lessons that teach your readers about the different non-fiction text features? These activities will transform your students into text detectives as they investigate the different text features, their importance, and how to use them to understand the text. This unit introduces the informational text features in a fun, engaging, and meaningful way!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY OTHER NF VIDEOS!

Kicking Off Your NF Unit

Teaching Photographs and Captions

Teaching Diagrams

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.

Reading Conference Resources- Detective Style! You can conclude your Non-Fiction unit by holding one-of-a-kind reading conferences with a detective theme! Begin by gathering detective gear (black hat, black sunglasses, fake mustache, clipboard, black tie and white shirt, black trench coat) to dress up as an “official” detective. Introduce yourself as a Private Detective of Text Features, who will be conducting official interviews independently with each junior detective in training. One at a time, I call a student to read with me, or interview with me! I ask each student to point out each text feature that we learned about.

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

Save 20% by buying all my Reading Workshop Units of Study in one year long bundle!>

Reading Workshop Bundle

Unit 1, Launching Reading Workshop in your Primary Classroom

Implementing Reading Workshop in Your Primary Classroom

Unit 2, Reading Workshop: Metacognition: Thinking about Reading

Reading is Thinking

Unit 3, Implementing Reader's Notebooks with Reading Workshop

Reader’s Notebook

Unit 4, Reading to Learn: Informational Text Features

I Spy Informational Text Features!

Unit 5, Character Study Unit

Character Study Unit

Unit 6, Diving Deep with Book Clubs

Book Clubs

Also included in the bundle:

Classroom Library Kit

Cassroom Library Kit

Reading Workshop Book Awards Celebration

Reading Workshop Book Awards Celebration

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Thanks for checking out my resource!

Melissa :)