How to Improve Reading Comprehension Strategies: Text Structures

Help students identify text structures in nonfiction with this guided reading comprehension lesson. Two original informational passages about glowing mushrooms, known as fairy fire, provide an engaging way to explore how authors organize information.

Using teacher-guided instruction and text structure graphic organizers, students learn to recognize organizational patterns in informational text. They then practice identifying text structures independently. This lesson helps students—including struggling readers—organize information and understand how ideas connect.

Text Structures Covered:

• Cause and effect

• Chronological order, process, or sequence

• Problem and solution

• Compare and contrast

• Description

• Narrative

Students Will Practice:

• Recognizing different text structures

• Examining how authors organize nonfiction information

• Recording their thinking on a graphic organizer

• Applying text structure strategies independently

What’s Included:

• Teacher’s Guide with lightly scripted instruction

• Two original one-page informational passages about glowing mushrooms

• Three-page annotated Text Structures graphic organizer

• Three-page blank Text Structures graphic organizer

• Answer key

• Teaching Tips: “What Students Wish Their Teachers Knew About Teaching”

A Note About the Passages:

This lesson uses the same two passages as my Central Idea and Summary lesson. Each resource teaches a different reading skill, allowing you to revisit familiar text with a new instructional focus.