Human beings have important elements in their bodies such as a heart, lungs, blood vessels and brain. These elements stand out from other features of our body.

Textbooks and informational text also have important elements that stand out from the other parts of the text.

While reading informational text, you have probably seen some or all of the following: ** Boldface terms ** Photos and Illustrations ** Charts ** Preview ** Glossary ** Table of contents ** Headings and Titles ** Caption ** Index ** Timeline ** Maps

These are called Text Features and their purpose is help us understand the information presented.

Boldface boldface type is a signal to: Slow Down and Pay Attention signals that a word, term, or event is important

Charts gives information, show processes or make comparisons packs lots of information in a small space a great resource to help you understand information in the text

Glossary alphabetical list of key people, places, events, and terms. a tool to help you understand the language of the subject

Graphs uses pictures and symbols to show information a graph is shown to make a point always read the graph’s title, labels on the vertical and horizontal axes, and any other text included with the graph

Headings and Titles announces the topics that will be covered allows us to be efficient in our reading -- skim the headings to focus on the purpose of our reading increase your comprehension by turning headings and titles into a question -- as you continue to read, can you answer your “question”?

Index found at the very back of a textbook gives the location of every important idea, term, definition, person, and place. a search tool to help you find what you need

Maps When reading a map, pay attention to the following: ** Lines ** Scale ** Symbols ** Colors ** Labels ** Legend or Key ** Compass Rose ** Lines of Longitude and Latitude

Photos and Illustrations photos and illustrations are used to emphasize or make important points read the captions captions tell you the reason for putting the picture or illustration in the text captions say in a few lines, what the author takes paragraphs to explain

Preview Many textbooks include a preview at the beginning of chapters. acts like a summary packs into one small space, all of the important things to know about a chapter key terms and important vocabulary will often be listed in the preview

There are additional text features such as color, italics, underlining, examples, insets and many, many more!!!!

Authors use text features to bring attention to important details.

And now you are saying, “So What?”.

Here’s the, “So What!”. Putting text features into use will help you understand more of your reading, and probably allow you to do it in less time!!!!

You can use text features to become more successful and efficient in your reading of informational text.

So next time you have a reading assignment to complete, pay attention to the text features as you read. See if you can put them to use to increase your comprehension and maybe you will even finish your assignment in less time.