Comprehension of Informational Text

Explanation of the Chart:

      The first figure shows the five basic patterns of informational texts: sequence or time order, listing or description, compare and contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution pattern. Students are having a hard time to recognize these patterns because some authors combine patterns and some organizational patterns maybe spread over several paragraphs.

      To address the problem, I put an arrow to the second figure that shows the strategies for helping students read informational text independently. The strategies can be Using Read-Alouds with Grade-Level Text, Content-Free Questions, Text Coding, Discussion Cards, Topic-Detail-Main Idea Strategy, Think-Aloud Strategy, and Question-Answer Relationships.

      Students must not only understand the informational texts, but they also have to memorize what they read to discuss it and pass the test. This leads to figure three that shows the strategies on how to transform these texts into a form that can easily be remembered (visual diagrams). When students construct a diagram, they can actively process the information. They will be able to recognize the important information. The use of main idea grid and idea mapping is a great way to transform informational texts.

Personal Reflection:

This week, I taught my students about the types of sentence according to purpose. For my grade school students, I taught them the basic elements of narrative texts. On the other hand, my high school students were assigned to study some descriptive, narrative, persuasive and expository texts. I can see that they need to work more with the informational or expository texts.

I can say that all of my students know how to read but few of them can really make sense of what they’ve read. When a child knows how to read, we call them literate. For me, content literacy is better. It is important that they have the ability to read and comprehend at the same time.

Narrative texts, which can be fiction or non-fiction, are used in language subjects like English and Filipino. In contrast, subjects like Science and Social Studies use informational and expository texts. After reading those texts, the teachers expect the students to answer some assignment or participate in the class discussion. Students are really having a hard time in that kind of method.

Knowing the strategies for helping students read informational text is essential not only for the language teachers but also for the teachers in other content areas. It should always be student-centered so that they can use it on their own.

Now that I understand the Informational Text, Grade-Level Competence and the Common Core Standards in reading. My dream to be a textbook author still goes on. I will be an author who will make these informational text “easy to digest” by the students.