The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Text Structures and Instructional Strategies

The Significance of Text Structure in Comprehension

Readers who are familiar with specific text structures possess significant advantages. They develop expectations for different parts of the text, know where to search for particular types of information, and understand how various text sections are linked together (Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, $2015$, p. $82$). Identifying these structures allows readers to locate necessary information for successful comprehension (Williams, $2017$).

Direct and intentional instruction is essential for supporting students' ability to focus on key information and comprehend content. This involves teaching the purpose and characteristics of both narrative and informational text, as well as the specific elements, features, and signal words associated with each.

Literacy Knowledge and the Reading Rope Framework

As children begin interacting with text, they develop literacy knowledge, which includes an awareness of print concepts and genre (Scarborough, $2001$). Literacy knowledge encompasses:

• Awareness that print conveys meaning.
• Knowledge of formatting conventions, such as reading from left to right and top to bottom, recognizing that words consist of letters, and understanding that spaces separate words.
• Recognition that different genres have unique purposes and utilize varied patterns to organize ideas.

In Scarborough’s ($2001$) Reading Rope metaphor (Figure $6.1$), literacy knowledge is a critical strand for language comprehension and a major factor in making meaning. This strand works in concert with background knowledge, which includes the reader's prior understanding of text structure (Williams, $2017$). All strands weave together to allow the student to extract and construct meaning.

The Dual Processing Levels: Microstructure and Macrostructure

Comprehension involves two levels of processing:

• Microstructure: The reader works with the meaning of individual words and sentences.
• Macrostructure: The reader grapples with connected sentences, paragraphs, and underlying meanings that convey essential understandings.

Skilled readers automatically surface text information to understand its organization. Proficient readers have a complete knowledge of how stories and informational texts are structured and use this to create a coherent mental representation of the text (Williams, $2018$).

Distinguishing Narrative and Informational Text Categories

Text structures are broadly classified into two categories: narrative and informational (also known as expository).

Narrative Text Characteristics:

• Primary Purpose: To entertain while providing an account of a problem or conflict with a resolution.
• Content: Portrays a story or sequence of related events, which can be fictional or nonfictional.
• Sequence: Events are sequenced temporally or causally and occur in specific settings described by the narrator.
• Elements: Represented through story grammar, including setting, characters, problem, initiating event, responses, climax, and resolution (Dymock, $2005$).

Informational Text Characteristics:

• Primary Purpose: To inform or instruct by describing, persuading, explaining, or reporting about the natural or social world (Duke & Bennett-Armistead, $2003$, p. $17$).
• Challenges: Features specialized vocabulary, high density of details, unfamiliar content, and less explicit organization compared to stories.
• Structures: Includes compare and contrast, problem and solution, cause and effect, sequence, description, and argumentation.

Narrative Text Structure: Story Grammar and Elements

Story grammar provides the schema necessary for the reader to navigate the text. The basic elements include:

• Setting: Where and when the story takes place.
• Characters: The people or animals in the story.
• Problem/Conflict: The struggle the main character faces.
• Initiating Event: The event that starts the action and leads to the problem.
• Internal Response: The character's thoughts and feelings about the initiating event.
• Attempt/Action: What the character does to solve the problem.
• Climax: The turning point or most exciting part of the story.
• Falling Action: Events that happen as a result of the climax.
• Resolution/Outcome: How the problem is solved and how the story ends.

Instructional Strategies for Narrative Text Mastery

Informed educators use explicit instruction, including direct explanations, modeling, focused feedback, and application. Key strategies include:

• Story Grammar Marker: A braided tool using icons to represent elements: star for setting, beads for actions, and a knotted tie for solution.
• Story Gloves: A glove with symbols on each finger to prompt discussion: a face for characters, a clock and tree for setting, stairs for events, a question mark for the problem, and a light bulb for the outcome (Newman, $2002$).
• Visual Representations:
  • Story Maps: Graphic organizers focusing on the beginning, middle, and end, or more advanced maps detailing characters, settings, and outcomes.
  • Storyboards: Templates resembling comic strips with $5$ or $6$ frames to represent the sequence of events.
  • Story Frames: Cloze-style sentences used to summarize the plot (e.g., "The problem is solved when… ").
• Advanced Literary Elements: Instruction in theme (lessons learned), point of view (who tells the story), symbolism, foreshadowing, alliteration, hyperbole, and imagery.

Identifying Narrative Structure through Signal Words

Signal words provide cues that support the understanding of the relationship between parts of a narrative:

• Beginning: At first, at the outset, in the beginning, it all started, initially.
• Middle: After, after a short time, soon after, before long, then, later on, next.
• End: At last, at the end, finally, thinking back, all in all.

The Foundation of Informational Text: Paragraph Structure

Comprehending complex informational text begins with understanding basic paragraph structures, typically consisting of a topic sentence with the main idea, supporting sentences with details, and a closing sentence. Main ideas may also be found at the end of a paragraph or inferred if not explicitly stated.

The RAP Paraphrasing Strategy: Developed by Schumacher, Denton, and Deshler ($1984$), this strategy helps students extract meaning through three steps:

1. Read a paragraph.
2. Ask yourself about the main idea and details.
3. Put the main idea and details in your own words.

Specific Structures and Purposes of Informational Text

Authors choose organizational schemes based on their intent (Meyer, $1985$):

• Description: Describes the attributes and features of a person, thing, or topic. Questions: Who/what is being described? What is included?
• Chronological Sequence: Provides the order or timing of events or steps. Questions: What is happening? In what order? Does the order matter?
• Compare and Contrast: Indicates how two or more things are alike or different. Questions: What is being compared? How are they alike and different?
• Problem and Solution: Identifies a problem and how to fix it. Questions: What is the problem? Why? What is being done?
• Cause and Effect (Causation): Tells why an event happened and its result. Questions: What happened? Why? What was the result?
• Argumentation: Involves pro and con viewpoints as a writing and analysis expectation (Newell, $2011$).

The Role of Signal Devices and Text Features in Expository Reading

Signal Words for Informational Text:

• Description: for example, for instance, such as, specifically, to illustrate.
• Sequence: after, before, following, next, currently, first, second, finally.
• Comparison: although, as opposed to, however, similarly, on the other hand.
• Cause and Effect: because, as a result, consequently, since, therefore.
• Problem and Solution: the problem is, a solution is, a difficulty is.

Text Features:

• Table of Contents: Identifies major sections and page numbers.
• Index: Alphabetical list of topics with page numbers found at the end.
• Glossary: Alphabetical list of specialized words and their definitions.
• Titles and Headings: Identify the topic and specific sections.
• Sidebar/Insert: Extra information related to the topic.
• Visual Aids: Photos, illustrations, captions, maps, charts, graphs, and diagrams.
• Typography: Bold, italicized, or colored print to emphasize important words.

Evidence-Based Strategies for Informational Text Comprehension

Text Feature Walk: Conducted prior to reading, the teacher explains the similarity to picture walks and uses a think-aloud to discuss how features contribute to meaning (Kelley & Clausen-Grace, $2010$).

The Text Structure Strategy: Developed by Meyer ($1975$, $2010$), this multifaceted approach involves:

1. Using signal words to determine structure.
2. Writing a main idea sentence summing up the structure (e.g., "The causes of… were… ").
3. Writing several additional sentences to recall important ideas.
4. Rereading and adding details.

Graphic Organizers: Powerful tools to organize information visually. Effective steps for use include:

• Before Reading: Preview the structure of the text using the organizer.
• During Reading: Fill in important ideas and information.
• After Reading: Partner discussion, retelling, or writing a summary based on the organizer (Denton et al., $2012$).

Disciplinary Text Framework and Academic Demands

By fourth grade, much classroom content is presented as expository text. Middle and upper grades require navigating disciplinary texts with increased difficulty. According to Barbara Foorman ($2007$) and the NAEP framework:

• History Texts: Often utilize cause and effect, sequence, and problem/solution; they incorporate the author's perspective and contrasting viewpoints.
• Mixed Texts: Historical or scientific readings that are quasi-narrative but informational in content (Alexander & Jetton, $2000$).

Support for Diverse Learners and Instructional Scaffolding

Students who struggle with comprehension, including English Language Learners (ELLs) and students with learning disabilities, often lack facility with story structure or advanced expository patterns (Cain & Oakhill, $2007$).

Effective adaptations include:

• Increased Explicitness and Intensity: Required for students at risk (Stetter & Hughes, $2010$).
• Visual Scaffolding: Using semantic organizers, framed outlines, and cognitive maps with mnemonics (Kim et al., $2004$).
• Structured Interventions: The "Close Analysis of Texts With Structure" intervention is intensive and scaffolded (Williams et al., $2014$).

Assessing Student Proficiency in Text Structures

Informal assessment measures track understanding through tasks such as:

• Narrative Assessment: Character analysis, completion of independent story maps, sorting signal words into beginning/middle/end categories, and underlining signals in context.
• Informational Assessment: Identifying main ideas and details, categorizing signal words based on paragraph types, creating outlines from graphic organizers, and paraphrasing or summarizing complex texts (Based on Hennessy, Coyne-Green, Harrison, Kingsland, & Salamone, $2018$).