What Is a Text Feature
Text features are the visual design elements in informational texts that help readers locate, understand, and remember information. These include headings, subheadings, bold or italicized words, captions, diagrams, charts, tables, bullet points, and sidebars. Unlike narrative texts that tell a story, informational texts rely heavily on these structural guides to break content into digestible pieces.
For struggling readers, text features serve as navigation tools that reduce cognitive load. Instead of reading every word in dense paragraphs, a reader can scan a heading, jump to a relevant section, and use a diagram to grasp a concept that might otherwise require re-reading. This is particularly important for students with dyslexia, who often benefit from reduced reading burden and visual supports that complement text-based information.
Why Text Features Matter
Text features directly support reading comprehension and independence. Research shows that students who can identify and use text features improve their ability to locate main ideas and supporting details. For struggling readers, this skill bridges the gap between decoding ability and comprehension.
In an IEP context, text feature recognition often appears as a comprehension strategy goal. When a student learns to use headings to predict content or refer to a caption to clarify vocabulary, they're developing self-monitoring skills that reduce reliance on teacher support. This is essential for transitioning from guided reading to independent reading.
Text features also support multi-sensory learning approaches like Orton-Gillingham, which emphasizes structured, explicit instruction. Teachers can pair phonics instruction with visual supports: presenting a heading in a specific font style, modeling how to read a chart alongside decoding practice, or using bold words to highlight phonetically regular patterns worth studying.
How to Teach Text Features
- Start with explicit naming: Point out specific text features during read-alouds. Say, "This is the heading. It tells us what this section is about" or "See the bold word? That's important vocabulary we'll learn."
- Model scanning behavior: Show students how to preview a page by reading only headings, captions, and labels before reading the full text. This builds prediction and reduces anxiety.
- Use color or highlighting: In early instruction, physical highlighting of text features helps readers notice them. Over time, remove the highlighting as students internalize the skill.
- Create text feature hunts: Provide a checklist of features to find in a passage. This gamifies the skill and builds automaticity.
- Connect to reading level: Informational texts at lower reading levels use fewer, simpler text features. As reading level increases, texts include more complex features like footnotes, sidebars, and layered diagrams.
Text Features for Struggling Readers
Students with dyslexia benefit from texts with frequent text features and white space between sections. Dense paragraphs without breaks create processing fatigue. Materials following dyslexia-friendly design principles use clear headings at regular intervals, shorter line lengths, and visual elements that reinforce written content.
For English language learners, captions and diagrams provide non-linguistic supports that clarify meaning without requiring translation. A diagram labeled with both English and a student's native language offers powerful scaffolding.
Common Questions
- Do text features help with phonics instruction? Not directly. Phonics teaches sound-symbol relationships through systematic, sequential instruction. Text features support comprehension after decoding occurs. However, teachers can use bold or colored text to highlight phonetically regular words or patterns worth studying.
- At what reading level should I introduce text features? Explicitly teach text features by mid-first grade or whenever students begin reading informational texts independently. Even kindergarteners can learn to recognize and name simple features like headings and pictures with labels in shared reading.
- Should text features appear in an IEP goal? Yes, if a student struggles with comprehension of informational text. A measurable goal might read: "Student will identify the main idea of an informational text passage by referencing the heading and one supporting detail from the passage in 4 out of 5 trials." This links text feature use to comprehension outcomes.