NONFICTION GRAPHIC FEATURESMs. Osborne

Mountain View ES

5th Grade

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

How can graphic features help me understand what I am reading?

How can I use the features and organization of a book to help me comprehend?

WHERE WILL YOU FIND THESE NONFICTION FEATURES?

In your textbooks (science, social studies, math…)

Newspapers Magazines

WHAT ARE NONFICTION TEXT FEATURES?

Text features are simply tools to help you comprehend what you are reading!!

We are going to focus on the following features…

Captions Labels Comparisons Fonts HeadingsAnd Graphics

Try looking only at these features before you read…they will help you focus on the main idea of the section or chapter!!!

LET’S START WITH CAPTIONS!

What are captions? Have you ever noticed the writing around

pictures in a book that you are reading? Well those are captions They usually are around a picture to explain

what the picture is about.

LOCATE A DIFFERENT CAPTION IN YOUR SCIENCE TEXT BOOK AND SHARE IT WITH YOUR NEIGHBOR.

How did you know that it was a caption?

OK…LET’S MOVE ON TO LABELS!

What are labels? They are also part of a picture…they actually

point out specific features in a picture.

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO LOCATE A LABEL!

Show your neighbor! How did you know that it was a label and not

a caption?

OK…LET’S MOVE ONTO COMPARISONS!

Do you know what it means to compare something?

Well a comparison in a text book, magazine, or newspaper is the same thing.. It shows two or more objects to compare size (example: showing a hand and comparing it to the size of a paperclip)

YOUR TURN…LOCATE AND SHARE A COMPARISON!

Again…how did you know…??

CHECK UP TIME!!

What is a label? What is a caption? How do you know the difference between the

two? What is a comparison? Give me an

example…

LET’S KEEP ON GOING…

Now what do you know about fonts?? Why would different types of fonts be

important (they are not just used to make things pretty )

Fonts are different ways of showing important words.

What are some different ways of doing this? BOLD, italics, highlight, underline, ALL CAPS

HEADINGS

These are everywhere!!! They are normally at the beginning of a

section/chapter to tell you what you are about to read.

HOW ARE HEADINGS HELPFUL? If you choose a heading from your Social

Studies or Science book and turn it into a question, it will give you a purpose to read! For example…

What are “Single-Celled Organisms?” This will tell you what to look for when you

are reading!!! WOW

FIND A HEADING IN CHAPTER ONE OF YOUR SCIENCE BOOK…

Look at the heading and form a question… Now read the section and let’s see if

changing the heading into a question helps you understand what you are reading…

What do you think??? (I give it two thumbs up!)

OK…LAST ONE…GRAPHICS…

You see these everywhere…especially in your math book….have any ideas of what I am talking about?

You got it…pie graphs, line graphs, bar graphs, pictographs, maps, charts, tables

How are these helpful? It makes data and information easy to read

and understand!!

LET’S REVIEW…

What is a caption? What is a label? How are headings useful? Name a few different ways to show that

words or phrases are important… How are graphics useful? Give a few graphics

that we see often… What is the last feature that we need to

review… Comparisons…how are these used?

Now you are a Nonfiction Text Features EXPERT