Engaging with Informational Text
During the elementary years, about half of the texts children engage with (including those
read aloud by teachers) are informational texts. Informational texts introduce children to different
organizational structures (such as description, explanation, or argument and cause/effect or
sequence of events) and text features (such as glossaries and headings or graphs and other visuals)
in addition to new concepts and the language that
represents those concepts and conveys relationships
among them. Teachers thoughtfully use informational
texts in a coherent program so that students build
their content knowledge and experience multiple
exposures to concepts and vocabulary. In other words,
informational texts are thoughtfully selected to support
students’ incremental development of deep content
understandings. Texts are shared during read-aloud
time, used in literacy instruction, employed during
content instruction, and made available for independent
reading. Texts on a wide variety of topics are available
for independent reading as personal interests are
stimulated and expanded by interactions with texts of
many kinds.
In the transitional through grade one span, children had many opportunities to actively engage
with informational text in group reading activities and, with prompting and support in grade one, to
read appropriately complex informational text. In both cases, they drew on relevant prior knowledge
and used illustrations and context to make predictions about the text (RI.K–1.10). They also learned
to ask and answer questions about key details in the text (RI.K–1.1); identify the main topic and
retell key details (RI.K–1.2); and describe the connections between two individuals, events, ideas,
or pieces of information (RI.K–1.3).They learned to use various text structures to locate key facts or
information in a text (RI.K–1.5). In addition, they learned to name the author and illustrator of a text
(in kindergarten) and to distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations
and information provided by the words in a text (in grade one) (RI.K–1.6), as well as to use the
illustrations and key details in a text to describe key ideas (RI.K–1.7). They learned to identify the
reasons an author gives to support points in a text (RI.K–1.8) and identify basic similarities in and
differences between two texts on the same topic (RI.K–1.9).
Prior to the grades two and three span, children also
learned to write informative/explanatory texts in which they
name a topic, supply some facts, and provide some sense of
closure (W.K–1.2).
New to the grades two and three span in terms of
engagement with informational text are the following:
- Identifying the main topic of a multi-paragraph
informational text as well as the focus of specific
paragraphs within the text (RI.2.2) and, in grade
three, recounting the key details and explaining how
they support the main idea (RI.3.2) - Describing the relationship between a series of
historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps
in a technical procedures in a text (RI.2–3.3)
Informational texts introduce
children to different organizational
structures (such as description,
explanation, or argument and
cause/effect or sequence of events)
and text features (such as glossaries
and headings or graphs and other
visuals) in addition to new concepts
and the language that represents
those concepts and conveys
relationships among them.
... informational texts are
thoughtfully selected to
support students’ incremental
development of deep content
understandings. Texts
are shared during read-
aloud time, used in literacy
instruction, employed during
content instruction, and made
available for independent
reading.
Grades 2 and 3 Chapter 4 | 307