Supports and Challenges in Text

Supports and Challenges in Text

Q: How do these characteristics of the text either help my students make meaning or challenge them to think more deeply?

Text Characteristics / Questions to Ask Yourself / Examples
Concepts
(the big ideas) / Q: Do students understand the concept?
Q: Do students have prior knowledge? / measurement, nature, circle of life, birds, inchworms
Vocabulary
(words that a reader will encounter in the text) / Q: What words do readers encounter in
the text that will hinder or support
them in creating meaning? / inchworm, gobble, emerald, measure
Illustrations
(pictures that are used in a text to convey meaning) / Q: Do the illustrations support the main
idea of the page/story?
Q: How are the illustrations used? / Emergent books: illus. carry meaning.
Early/Fluent books: illus. are used as a check
for meaning. They break up the density
of the text.
Text Form
(the genre of the text) / Q: What is the genre of the text? / Fiction, historial fiction, poetry, drama
Nonfiction, biography, newspaper, how-to
Language
(Language is specific to the genre, time, and reader’s developmental stage.) / Q: What types of language are present?
Q: What tense is it written in?
Q: How does the language reflect the
genre? / figurative language, dialogue, dialect, 1st person, 3rd person, past tense, present tense, rhythm and rhyme
Structures
(the way the story unfolds; the way info is presented) / Q: In what order is the story told—
chronological or with flashback?
Q: In a nonfiction piece, does the order
of information help the reader make
sense of it? / Beginning, middle, end…chronologically
End, beginning, middle…with flashback
Main idea and details with subheadings
Main idea with boxes and sidebars
Amount of Print per Page
(words vs. white space) / Q: How much print is on each page?
Q: How dense is the print? / Emergent books: one line of text per page
Fluent texts (5th/6th grade): small font size,
multiple paragraphs of text per page
Text Carried Over
(continuation of a sentence onto the next page) / Q: Are ideas completed on each page? / anytime a sentence does not end on one page and carries over to the next
Graphics
(charts, tables, etc. in nonfiction) / Q: What graphics appear in the text?
Q: How do the graphics help readers
make sense of the information? / maps, graphs, charts, and tables
Print Features
(typeface, font size, bold words, layout, etc.) / Q: What print features appear in the
text?
Q: How do they help readers make
meaning of the text? / chapter headings, larger font for important words, italics or bold type for emphasis
Conventions
(punctuation, usage, mechanics) / Q: What meaning is conveyed through
the conventions? / Quotation marks to signify dialogue, dashes or ellipses to mark a pause, exclamation points, question marks

Supports and Challenges in Text

Title: ______Lexile: ______Grade Level: ______

Text Characteristic to Analyze / How will it help my students make meaning? / How will it challenge my students as they make meaning?
Concepts
(the big ideas)
Vocabulary
(words that a reader will encounter in the text)
Illustrations
(pictures that are used in a text to convey meaning)
Text Form
(the genre of the text)
Language
(Language is specific to the genre, time, and reader’s developmental stage.)
Structures
(the way the story unfolds; the way info is presented)
Amount of Print per Page
(words vs. white space)
Text Carried Over
(continuation of a sentence onto the next page)
Graphics
(charts, tables, etc. in nonfiction)
Print Features
(typeface, font size, bold words, layout, etc.)
Conventions
(punctuation, usage, mechanics)

What comprehension strategy will you introduce with this text? ______

What comprehension strategies will you review with this text? ______