This form of text structure will help your
students improve their reading comprehension
Structures
BY FAYE BOLTON
I
t's very helpful for your students to understand how texts are structured because they
can then understand and recall more key information than readers who don't know how to
use text structures. One form of text structure is
called top-level structure.
There are four main organizational patterns,
or top-level structures, that occur mostly in factual
texts: compare/contrast, cause/effect, problem/
solution and list-like.
It's a signal. Authors often use signaling words to
signal the four main topvievel structures that they
use to organize their ideas. Thoughtful readers
take note of tliese signal words to heip ttiem imderstand texts.
compare/contrast
however, simitar to, different fiom. attke, and yet,
unalike, meanwhile, despite, but likewise...
cause/effect
as a result of, due to, consequence, because.
In contrast since, because...
problem/solution
to prevent solve, problem, difficulty, question.
solution, trouble...
llsMike
for example, before, then, finally, first next,
after, to begin with, for instance...
Top-level structures operate at three levels:
1. The Whole-text level helps readers to identify the main ideas.
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2. The Paragraph level helps readers see how details that support the main ideas are organized.
3. The Sentence level helps readers understand how ideas in a sentence are organized.
For example, in a text about emperor and king
penguins, the author's purpose might be to compare and contrast the two penguins at the Wholetext level. However, at the Paragraph level, tlie
author might write paragraphs listing details
about the physical features or habitats of each of
the penguins, using a list-like structure. At the Sentence level, the author might use the cause/effect
structure to explain how the male emperor penguin uses stomach skin to cover e ^ s to keep
them warm.
Introducing lop-level structures. When introducing top-level structures to your students,
help them understand that the organizational
patterns of top-level structures occur daily in
our real-life experiences. For example, when deciding which book to read, you compare and
contrast books, or when driving on wet roads,
drivers slow down to reduce the possibility of
having an accident (cause/effect). Help your students recognize these structural relationships In
their daily lives.
• Com pare/contrast: making decisions about
books to read, food to eat, etc.
• Ust-like: shopping lists, selecting a video from
a list
• Problem/solution: situations when someone
has lost something or a classmate has been
unfriendly
March 2007 • www.TeachingK-8.coni
cause/effect
compare/contrast
problem/solution
• Cause-effect: lack of sleep causing someone
to be tired, putting bread in toaster results in
it being toasted
By drawing your students' attention to signaling words during the discussions about their
daily life experiences, they'll then be more able
to recognize these words when reading, and use
them when writing. You could also write sentences about their life experiences, identify signaling words and develop a class chart of them
for each top-level structure. Each list could be
added to as your students identify more signaling words during discussions in Shared, Guided
and Independent Reading sessions and focus on
their use in Shared Writing.
Top-level text. Initially, when your students investigate top-level structures of factual texts, it's
easier if you use familiar texts. Make sure your
students have a lot of prior knowledge of the
topic. In each case, explain how doing this helps
you to understand the text better. You'll also
need to demonstrate and discuss how you identify the top-level structures of texts. For example:
• Read the text, and use a process of elimination to identify the top-level structure. Look
at a class chart that lists the four top-level
structures and work down the list. Reread the
text to see if the structures apply.
• Scan the text for words that signal top-level
structures and then read the text to see if it
applies.
• Show that you have a hunch what the structure might be and read the text to see if your
predicted top-level structure applies.
www.TeaclimgK-8.coni • March 2007
• Try using a combination of aforementioned
strategies.
Cause/effect. Good readers predict using their
prior knowledge before and when reading. As
well as using prior knowledge based on their life
experiences, these readers use text-specific
knowledge - knowledge of text structures to
form predictions.
The following are some tips for when your students are using prediction and their knowledge of
top-level structures with cause/effect. Be sure to
select texts where the author uses signal words
that help readers identify how the information is
organized.
list-like
By utilizing top-level
structures, students
are able to clearly see
the difference when
comparing things
tike, for example,
the characteristics
of emperor and king
penguins (above).
• Help your students understand that if they
know one component of a top-level structure,
for example cause or effect, it will help them
predict the other.
• Ask them to scan a text for words that signal the
cause. Encourage students to identify tlie cau.se
and predict the effect Then read to the class so
that they can confirm their predicted effect
Most importantly, make explicit to your students how they can apply wiiat they learned about
top-level structures when reading Independently.
When conferring with your students during
Independent Reading, ask them to explain how
they use their knowledge of top-level structures
to predict when reading, and how using knowledge of top-level structures helped them in comprehending texts better. I hope these methods
are helpful to you and your students.
4^
For an example of predicting using signaling words, go to www.TeachingK-8.com
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