Nonfiction Text Features

let's learn non-fiction text features non-fiction books often have something called text features remember non-fiction books and texts teach information and are real and based on truth you might read information about animals places sports or people authors use text features in their non fiction writing because text features help us find and understand information let's take look at some of the most common text features and how they help us as Readers first is the title an article or book often has title and that is the name at the top of piece of writing or on the cover of book that tells what the topic is it's helpful to have heads up about what you're reading so this book tells me I'm going to be learning about the moon the next text feature you might notice in non-fiction book is the table of contents this is list of chapters or sections in book that tells the reader what order information is shared so here we can see all that we will learn about the moon and Which chapter we'll find the information so far fiction books also have title and often chapters but they don't usually have headings like non-fiction books and texts have headings are large or colored text that helps organize information into sections and tells you what you are about to read can you see the heading on this page it's these big words up at the top introduction non-fiction books often start with an introduction to introduce their topic another text feature you might find in non-fiction books are key words they are bolded or colored text that's an important term that the author wants you to notice can you find the key word on this page there it is the author wants us to notice the word orbits and make sure we know what it means one of my favorite text features are the pictures or photographs they're often real life pictures that help the reader see what someone or something looks like the author may use drawings too like in fiction books this Photograph gives us great visual of what the moon looks like up close labels are another important text feature these are words near picture that helps reader identify parts of picture can you find the labels here those white words Earth and Moon are labels in the picture lot of times there might even be an arrow next to the label too captions are text feature that is text or writing that is by picture and it explains what's shown in picture take look do you see where there are words by the picture this caption says the sun lights up different parts of the surface of the Moon our view is changing not the Moon it's helpful when authors say more about picture with caption so that we can learn even more finally near the end of the non-fiction books you might find glossery glossery is at the end of the book and it lists key words and definitions so remember when we saw the keyword orbit if wasn't sure what the word meant could turn way back to the glossery and see the definition it means repeating path that one object in space takes around another the last thing in non-fiction book is often the index the index is non-fiction text feature at the end of the book that lists ideas from the book and their page number it's always in alphabetical order too so if wanted to find information just about gravity in the moon could turn to page six and eight it's little helpful tool that helps you find certain thing that you might be trying to find in the book let's do little check and see if you can find some of these text features it takes time to remember their names so I'll try to help with that part so this is chapter on the moon landing can you spy the heading there it is remember headings help organize information in Cs and tell you what you're about to read can you spy key word what is it there it is it's astronaut key words are important words the author wants us to notice and make sure we know we can also find the word in the glossery now where is the photograph bet that wasn't too tricky there it is pictures make so much more clear how about label can you spy label right there on the photograph it has the words Moon and Astronaut where is the caption there it is remember captions are words that go with picture do you see how it's right by the picture and it looks little different from the rest of the text non-fiction books of often have some other text features too they might have subheadings which are headings under bigger heading this page has two subheadings that help organize the information even more one section is about famous astronauts and one is about famous words non-fiction books might also have maps to show location diagrams to explain something charts to show information or even bullets to make list the author puts these text features in books to make them easier to understand and to help us get more information out of them next time you read non-fiction book notice all the wonderful text features that authors so carefully included just for you