Teaching narrative text structure

Welcome back to our series about reading comprehension strategies!

In this post I’ll explain how an awareness of text structure can help students understand text. I’ll also share a simple routine for teaching narrative text structure.

What is text structure?

Text structure is how an author organizes a text. Research shows that explicit instruction in text structure leads to gains in reading comprehension (Williams, 2005).

There are two types of text structure: narrative and expository.

• Narrative text – tells a story or describes a series of events
• Expository text – gives information

If readers can anticipate that a text will contain certain types of information, and that information will be presented in a certain way, they’ll have an easier time picking out the key ideas and are more likely to remember them.

Moats & Hennessy, 2010

When should we begin teaching text structure?

We can begin teaching text structure even before students begin to read – as early as kindergarten! We can do this through interactive read alouds (Oakhill et al, 2015).

I recommend starting with narrative text structure, because story elements are much easier for students than expository text structures (coming in the next post of this series).

A routine for teaching narrative text structure

1. Choose a familiar story or variation of a popular tale.

2. Before reading, present a series of questions that you’ll be pausing to ask as you read aloud the text.

• Who is the story about?
• What is he or she trying to do?
• What happens when he or she tries to do it?
• What happens in the end?

3. Pause to ask each question at an appropriate point in the read aloud.

4. As a class, complete a graphic organizer. You can display the organizer on a large screen and fill it in with your students’ input. Eventually, they will be able to complete an organizer with a partner or independently.

5. Teach your students to retell the story using five fingers as a scaffold.

Another retelling option is to use an anchor chart or bookmark with a series of images as prompts. Paris & Paris (2007) found that students who received explicit instruction in these kinds of techniques showed better comprehension than those who did not.

I hope this post was helpful!

And check out the rest of our comprehension strategies series by clicking the image below!

References

Moats, L. C., & Hennessy, N. (2010) Digging for meaning: Teaching text comprehension. Sopris West Educational Services.

Oakhill, J., Cain, K., & Elbro, C.(2015). Understanding and teaching reading comprehension. Routledge.

Paris, A. H., & Paris, S. G. (2007). Teaching narrative comprehension strategies to first graders. Cognition and Instruction, 25(1), 1-2.

Williams, J. P. (2005). Instruction in reading comprehension for primary-grade students: A focus on text structure. The Journal of Special Education, 39(1), 6-18.