Identifying Author’s
Purpose
Authors write a text for a
variety of purposes.
The main purposes include:
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

to persuade
to inform
to entertain
to express ideas
Part 12: Reading ComprehensionIdentifying Author’s Purpose
An author’s purpose is the reason for writing. In order to effectively
comprehend a text, it is essential to determine the author's purpose.
Good readers know that an author does not always explicitly state
the purpose for writing and may write for more than one reason.
Reflective readers are able to analyse information thoughtfully
when they know an author’s purpose. Understanding an author’s
purpose helps readers decide an appropriate pace when decoding
the text.
Tips to help at home!
 Give your child examples of different text type, and
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challenge them to identify the author’s purpose.
Get your child to search through a newspaper and cut
out articles, advertisements, etc., and challenge them
to identify the author’s purpose.
Choose a topic and encourage your child to write a
paragraph for each of the author's purposes.
Focus Questions
To help your child identify the author’s purpose while they are reading, ask him/her the following questions:
 Based on the title, why do think the author wrote this selection?
 Why do you think the author wrote the article? To persuade? To entertain? To inform? To express?
 Why did the author write the article from a particular point of view?
 Was the author’s purpose specifically stated?
 Why did the author write this?
 What examples from the text support your conclusions about author’s purpose?