Text Features to Find Information

Which text feature would you use to find the names of all chapters in a book and the pages where they started?

• a heading

• a caption

• the table of contents

• the glossary

Which text feature would tell you the major topic or main idea in one chapter of a text?

• the heading

• the caption

• the glossary

• the table of contents

Juan is writing a report on Italian food. He finds a book titled “Foods of the World.” He opens to Chapter 2 on page 12 and reads the word “Spain” in large letters. Further down on the page, he reads the word “Northern Spain ” in smaller letters. Page 12 of Juan’s book ________.

• had no text features

• had a diagram but no other text features

• had the table of contents only

• had a heading and a subheading

Juan decides to skip the chapter about Spain. He turns to Chapter 3 on Italian food. He begins reading. Which of the following is most likely true?

• Juan will have to read Chapter 2 later in order to write his report.

• Juan is using the text features correctly to skim the text and find the information he needs.

• Juan is reading the book from cover to cover.

• Juan is not using text features correctly to help him find the information he needs.

Juan knows that “Italy” will be described on pages 22-30. To figure this out, he probably ________.

• looked for “Italy” in the glossary

• looked for “Italy” in the index

• looked for “Italy” on a diagram

• saw this information on the cover

If a word is in bold, italics or underlined, it might be ________.

• a less important detail

• spelled incorrectly

• information you should skip

• a new term to learn

Cynthia doesn’t understand what’s going on in a picture in her book. What can she do?

• look in the table of contents

• look for a graph

• read the caption

• stare at it for three minutes

In the book she's reading, Jenny sees a picture of a plant with different parts labeled. This is a ________.

• diagram

• table

• caption

• vocabulary word

True or False: Nonfiction books never contain text features.

• True

• False

A graph or chart ________.

• explains a photograph

• provides additional description in words

• displays and organizes facts and numbers

• shows you all the photographs a book contains