TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 232­–241. Copyright 2020 The Author(s). DOI: 10.

1177/0040059919889358

Improving Reading
Comprehension of
Informational Text
Text Structure Instruction for Students With
or At Risk for Learning Disabilities
Leah M. Zimmermann, M.Ed. , and Deborah K. Reed, Ph.D. ,
Iowa Reading Research Center, University of Iowa
232
“
One type of strategy instruction that may improve
the reading comprehension of students with or
at risk for LD is text structure instruction.
The ability to comprehend informational
texts is critical to students’ academic success in
a range of content areas. However,
informational texts pose challenges to the
reading comprehension of adolescents with or
at risk for learning disabilities (LD). One such
challenge is the use of multiple text structures
in a single text. Text structure instruction, in
which students learn to identify and analyze
organizational patterns in texts, may improve
the abilities of students with or at risk for LD
to comprehend informational text.
Importantly, text structure instruction must go
beyond identifying a single overarching
structure of a controlled exemplar text. To
ensure that students with or at risk for LD
experience rigorous text structure instruction
aligned to grade-level standards, teachers need
to implement instruction using authentic texts
and carefully plan and gradually increase the
relative complexity of instructional tasks. The
purposes of this article are to describe explicit,
scaffolded text structure instruction with
authentic, multistructure informational texts
and provide resources that general and special
education teachers can use to scaffold text
structure instruction.
Ms. Grant is a ninth-grade special
education teacher who supports students with
learning disabilities (LD) in their English
language arts (ELA) classes. During the first
of a series of professional learning
community meetings, Ms. Grant collaborated
with her general education co-teacher,
Mr. Robinson, to review recent student work,
including reading comprehension quizzes and
text-based writing assignments. They saw a
pattern in which students were especially
struggling with comprehending informational
texts. The Grade 9 ELA team wanted to
identify reading standards with which their
students were having the most difficulty to
develop reading comprehension instruction
tailored to their students’ needs. They
determined that many of their students with
LD were struggling with CCSS.ELA-
LITERACY.RI.9, a standard that relates to the
organization and structures of the ideas
conveyed in informational texts (National
Governors Association Center for Best
Practices [NGACBP] & Council of Chief State
School Officers [CCSSO], 2010a). Ms. Grant
and Mr. Robinson arrive at the second
professional learning community meeting
eager to work with the Grades 9–12 ELA team
to design instruction on informational text
structures and improve their students’
comprehension of informational texts.
The ability to comprehend informa-
tional text is crucial to students’ academic
success in a range of subject areas,
including science and social studies
(O’Connor et al., 2017; Reed, Petscher, &
Truckenmiller, 2017). By the time that
students reach middle school, college-
and career-readiness standards indicate
that the majority of assigned texts used
across the curriculum be informational
texts (NGACBP & CCSSO, 2010a).
The standards also require students to
demonstrate their reading comprehension
by analyzing and synthesizing elements of
complex informational texts taken from a
range of genres (e.g., memoirs, speeches,
technical writing, essays; NGACBP &
CCSSO, 2010c).
Students with or at risk for LD may
struggle with these text comprehension
expectations for several reasons. They
may have difficulty self-monitoring their
comprehension as they read (Joseph &
Everleigh, 2011). In addition, they may
not have learned beneficial
comprehension strategies or do not have
the ability to apply learned strategies
when comprehension breaks down (Hock,
Brasseur-Hock, Hock, & Duvel, 2017).
Furthermore, students with or at risk for
LD may exhibit more comprehension
difficulties when reading informational
text than when reading literary text,
particularly when attempting to make
inferences (Denton et al., 2015). These
difficulties may be attributable to specific
challenges presented by informational
text. Informational texts often contain
complex, domain-specific vocabulary and
place high demands on students’ content
knowledge (Gajria, Jitendra, Sood, &
Sacks, 2007). Moreover, informational
texts may organize ideas in a variety of
ways, or text structures, that tend to
change multiple times within and across
paragraphs (Pyle et al., 2017). Fortunately,
explicit reading comprehension strategy
instruction, in which teachers model and
provide scaffolded practice in using and
selecting strategies for making meaning
from text, has been found to benefit the
reading comprehension of students with
or at risk for LD (Boardman, Klingner,
Buckley, Annamma, & Lasser, 2015).
Text Structure Instruction
One type of strategy instruction that may
improve the reading comprehension of
students with or at risk for LD is text
structure instruction (Hebert, Bohaty,
Nelson, & Brown, 2016; Pyle et al., 2017).
In text structure instruction, teachers
explicitly teach students to identify and
analyze structural elements using a range
of strategies.
Text structure instruction is one
approach that can be implemented with
students with or at risk for LD when
reading informational texts. Text
structure is the way that an author
organizes the information in a text to
achieve a specific purpose, such as to
persuade or inform the reader (Meyer &
Poon, 2001). Text structures that might be
taught include cause-effect, description,
problem-solution, and sequence (Meyer &
Ray, 2011). For descriptions of the
common text structures, see Figure 1.
Importantly, students experience better
outcomes when teachers provide
instruction in a range of text structure
types, rather than focusing on a singular
high-leverage structure (Hebert et al.,
2016). Being able to recognize common
organizational patterns in informational
texts may provide students with cognitive
frameworks to organize the complex
vocabulary and content encountered while
reading (Pyle et al., 2017), thus supporting
their comprehension as well as their
March/April 2020
retention and recall of important
information (Hebert et al., 2016).
Students need to not only identify text
structures but also analyze how authors use
structural elements to communicate their
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 TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 52, No. 4
234
F i g u r e 1 Text structure guide
Structure/Definition
Compare-Contrast:
Explaining ways in
which two or more
things are similar and
different.
Cause-Effect:
Explaining causes
and their resulting
outcomes or effects.
Description:
Identifying a topic
and describing its
characteristics and/
or features and/or
providing relevant
examples.
Problem-Solution:
Identifying a problem
and possible
solution(s) to the
problem.
Sequence:
Listing in
chronological order
how an event or
process occurs.
Elements/Guiding Questions
Similarities: What is the
same? How are ____ and
____ alike?
Differences: What is
different? How are ____ and
____ not the same?
Cause: What made ____
happen? What led to ____?
Effect: What happened as a
result of ____?
Characteristics: What is
____ like?
Features: What is ____made
up of?
Examples: What is an
example of ____?
Problem: What is going
wrong? What is the conflict?
Solution: How can this
problem be fixed or helped?
Step: How can the main
event or process be broken
up? How does the main
event or process occur? In
what order do the parts of
the event or process occur?
Map Signal Words and Phrases
same, similar, like, in the same
way, compare, have in common,
both, also, alike, by the same token,
equally, just as
contrast, different, however, but, on
the other hand, although, though, yet,
conversely, nevertheless
because, since, consequently, led
to, therefore, as a result, because,
if/then, hence, thus, due to,
since, accordingly, consequence,
outcome, influence, impact
characteristics, attributes, factors, •• describe characteristics of causes, effects,
features, like, usually, often,
consists of, comprise, composed
of
for example, for instance, as an
illustration, such as, in particular,
specifically, to demonstrate,
exemplifies
conflict, harm, problem,
problematic, issue, difficulty,
crisis, jeopardy, challenge
solve, fix, help, answer, resolve,
ameliorate, support, recourse,
improve, better, enhance, benefit
1. first, second, third…, next, then,
2.
last, finally, initially, at the
beginning, at the end, before,
3.
after, preceding, following, prior
to, cycle, sequence, process,
history
Structure Partners
•• compare and contrast problems
•• compare and contrast solutions
•• compare and contrast causes
•• compare and contrast effects
•• provide examples of similarities and
differences
•• compare and contrast events or processes
•• identify causes of problems
•• identify effects of solutions
•• identify causes and effects of events
•• compare and contrast causes
•• compare and contrast effects
•• identify events that caused effects
•• identify events that caused problems
problems, solutions, events, or processes
•• provide examples of causes, effects,
problems, solutions, events, or processes
•• compare and contrast problems
•• compare and contrast solutions
•• identify causes of problems
•• identify effects of solutions
•• list steps of a solution
•• sequence events that led to a problem
•• compare and contrast events or processes
•• identify causes and effects of events
•• sequence events that led to a problem
•• identify events that caused effects
•• identify events that caused problems
“
Text mapping is a strategy that has been
found to improve the reading comprehension
of students with or at risk for LD.
intended messages (i.e., ideas or claims).
Text mapping is a strategy that has
been found to improve the reading
comprehension of students with or at risk
for LD (Boon, Paal, Hintz, & Cornelius-
Freyre, 2015; Pyle et al., 2017). A text map
is a graphic organizer that students use to
organize and display textual features and
corresponding textual details (Gajria et al.,
2007). For example, a simple table
containing numbered rows might be used
to display the chronological order of events
in the sequence text structure. See Figure 1
for examples of text maps for common text
structures. The maps provide a means for
students to visualize structural elements
and analyze their relationships to the ideas
presented in the text. Therefore, text
structure instruction often pairs the
identification of text structures with the
analysis of text structures in a text map.
Most authentic informational texts
are composed of multiple text structures
(Meyer, 2003). Authentic texts are those
that have been written to achieve a
communicative purpose, rather than
solely to teach students particular reading
or writing skills (Duke, Purcell-Gates,
Hall, & Tower, 2006). In text structure
instruction, authentic texts can be
contrasted with controlled exemplar texts,
which are carefully crafted to exemplify
particular text structures and their
elements (e.g., Williams et al., 2016).
Teachers use single-structure exemplar
texts in the initial phases of text structure
instruction (Jones, Clark, & Reutzel, 2016)
and teach students strategies for analyzing
particular structures, such as using a note
frame to organize important information
(e.g., Roehling, Hebert, Nelson, & Bohaty,
2017). Explicit instruction and practice
with controlled exemplar texts may serve
as a form of scaffolding to strengthen
students’ mental representations of text
structures (Meyer & Ray, 2011). However,
it is crucial for subsequent instruction to
incorporate increasingly complex
informational texts, such as those
containing unfamiliar content knowledge
or authentic texts composed of multiple
types of text structures (Pyle et al., 2017).
The ELA instructional coach, Ms. Thomas,
suggests that the ELA team should help
Ms. Grant and Mr. Robinson unpack CCSS.
ELA-LITERACY.RI.9 into a progression of
subskills that students must learn before
mastering the grade-level standard. Next,
Ms. Grant and Mr. Robinson review students’
quizzes and text-based writing assignments
and identify the subskills that their students
have learned and those that they are
struggling to master. As a team, they
determine that many students can correctly
identify a single structure in a text, such as
problem-solution. However, students struggled
to recognize that texts contain multiple
structures used in conjunction to develop
authors’ claims and ideas. Consequently,
students’ analyses of relationships between
the author’s claims and ideas and the text
structures were often incomplete and
inaccurate. After discussing possible action
steps for Ms. Grant and Mr. Robinson, the
team agrees that the Grade 9 ELA team should
implement text structure instruction with
authentic multistructure texts.
Text Structure Instruction
With Authentic Texts
To prepare for and implement text
structure instruction with authentic texts
in general education classrooms, general
and special education teachers should
consider five steps. In the first step,
teachers prepare for the lesson by
developing objectives, creating and
gathering instructional materials, and
constructing and completing all
instructional activities planned for their
students (i.e., modeling, guided practice,
independent practice). In the four
subsequent steps, teachers deliver explicit
instruction (Archer & Hughes, 2011).
The onset of explicit instruction involves
introducing the lesson to students.
Then, teachers model the cognitive
processes required to identify and analyze
text structures. After modeling, teachers
guide student practice in applying these
processes before providing independent
practice opportunities and evaluating
student learning.
Step 1: Prepare for the Lesson
Purposeful preparation is crucial for
teachers of students with or at risk for
LD to properly implement text structure
instruction with authentic texts. Before
learning to identify and analyze the
author’s use of multiple structural
elements in an authentic text, students
must be able to identify single text
structures (Jones et al., 2016). This initial
phase of text structure instruction is often
implemented with controlled exemplar
texts (e.g., Roehling et al., 2017). After
mastering single structures, students are
ready to apply their cumulative knowledge
to a more authentic and complex text.
Develop objectives. To prepare for
instruction with texts containing multiple
structures, teachers first develop the
targeted learning objectives. Objectives
are based on the standards to which
instruction will be aligned. When reading
comprehension instruction is being
planned, the targeted standard is often
broken down, or unpacked, into subskills
that can be taught in individual lessons
(Hughes, Morris, Therrien, & Benson,
2017). Teachers choose the subskills
necessary for students to continue their
progression to the grade-level reading
standard and develop objectives that
reflect these subskills.
For example, text structure instruction
may be aligned to CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.
RI.9, which requires students to “analyze
in detail how an author’s ideas or claims
are developed and refined by particular
sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions
of a text (e.g., a section or chapter)”
(NGACBP & CCSSO, 2010b, p. 2).
To master this standard, students must
develop a number of subskills. First, they
have to be able to determine if an author
March/April 2020
is making claims or providing ideas (i.e.,
identify the author’s purpose). Second,
students need to summarize the author’s
claims or ideas. Third, students need to
identify structural elements, particularly
235
 F i g u r e 2 Resources for selecting texts

Tools for Quantitatively Analyzing Texts

Description URL

Lexile Analyzer: reports the Lexile® level of an https://lexile.com/analyzer/

entered text

Readability Analyzer: reports the Gunning Fog, https://datayze.com/readability-analyzer.php

Flesch-Kincaid, SMOG, Dale-Chall, and Fry scores for
an entered text

Readability Calculator: reports the Coleman Liau https://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_

index, Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level, Automated test_and_improve.jsp
Readability Index, and SMOG scores for entered text

Text Easability Assessor: reports the narrativity, http://tea.cohmetrix.com/

syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, referential
cohesion, and deep cohesion scores of entered text

Tools for Qualitatively Analyzing Texts

Description URL

Difficult and Extraneous Word Finder: identifies rare https://datayze.com/difficult-word-finder.php

and long words in an entered text

Qualitative Measures: crowdsourced reports of https://www.teachingbooks.net/support.

qualitatively analyzed books cgi?f=support_howtouse&start#titlesearch

Qualitative Measures Rubric: rubric displaying https://achievethecore.org/content/upload/

four levels of text complexity and descriptors for SCASS_Info_Text_Complexity_Qualitative_
qualitative measures Measures_Info_Rubric_2.8.pdf

Sources of Informational Texts

Description URL

Find a Book: searchable tool within the Lexile® https://fab.lexile.com/

Framework

ReadWorks Reading Passages: fiction and nonfiction https://www.readworks.org/find-content#!q:/g:/t:/

passages sorted by topic pt:/features:/

Pros and Cons of Current Issues: articles outlining https://www.procon.org/

opposing arguments related to controversial issues

Smithsonian Tween Tribune: news stories sorted by https://www.tweentribune.com/

topic and available at a range of difficulty levels
TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 52, No. 4

those that develop the author’s claims or
ideas. Finally, students must analyze how
structural elements are organized to
present the claims and ideas.
Select reading materials. When
authentic texts are being selected for
students with or at risk for LD, there
are several important considerations.
The texts must be complex enough to
engage students in rigorous reading
instruction but still accessible enough for
students to be successful with the
assigned instructional task (Swanson &
Wexler, 2017). In addition, teachers
should consider whether the text will
motivate and engage students by
containing elements of cultural relevancy,
offering different perspectives on issues,
or making connections to real-world
events (Leko, Mundy, Kang, & Datar,
2013). Although it may be tempting to
use a readability level as the indicator of a
text’s appropriateness, readability alone
does not fully capture the complexity of a
text (Reed & Kershaw-Herrera, 2016;
Lupo, Tortorelli, Invernizzi, Ryoo, &
Strong, 2019). Rather, teachers need to
combine quantitative indicators of a text’s
difficulty with qualitative indicators, such
as the demands that the text places on
students’ background knowledge, the
density of the information presented, and
the use of abstract or figurative language
(Pearson & Hiebert, 2013). Resources for
determining a text’s complexity and for
locating authentic informational text are

236
provided in Figure 2. Depending on the
length of the chosen texts, several may be
necessary to complete an explicit
instructional sequence of modeling,
guided practice, and independent practice.
Because the text structure may change
multiple times within and across
paragraphs of authentic material (Meyer,
2003), it is important to spend time
identifying the structural elements in each
text selected for instruction.
Create guides. Figure 1 contains a text
structure guide that students can use as a
reference while reading informational
text and completing activities related to
analyzing structural elements. In addition
to defining each common type of
structure and offering a sample map that
might be used to visually represent
information in the associated
organizational pattern, the guide contains
three other types of supports. First, it
includes guiding questions that a teacher
can use to shape students’ thinking about
the information in a text and the
functions of particular structural elements
(Williams et al., 2016). The guiding
questions in Figure 1 can be used with
any text containing the specified
structure, but teachers also may need to
create other kinds of guiding questions
that are specific to the content of an
assigned text (Williams & Pao, 2011).
The second type of support included in
the text structure guide is the column
containing sample signal words and
phrases. Students can use these as
indicators of certain text structures
(Meyer, Wijekumar, & Lei, 2018). For
example, students might learn to associate
the word conversely with a difference, or
contrast, within the compare-contrast text
structure. Although this is helpful when
still becoming familiar with how authors
incorporate the organizational patterns,
students are not taught that signal words
alone are evidence of a particular type of
structure, because many of these words
can be used in a range of text structures
(e.g., in addition, consequently; Hebert
et al., 2016).
The last support listed on the text
structure guide is the list of structure
partners. These are offered as examples of
how two text structures might appear
together in a paragraph or section because
one organizational pattern is being used as
support or elaboration for another
structure. For example, a text written to
present possible solutions to a problem
may describe the causes that resulted in
the problem, compare and contrast the
different solutions offered, and outline the
steps in the process of solving the
problem. The author uses the partner text
structures of description, cause-effect,
compare-contrast, and sequencing to
support the overarching structure of
problem-solution. Students can use the
structure partners to self-monitor their
comprehension while reading and to
organize important ideas and claims from
a text (Meyer & Poon, 2001).
Complete teacher versions.
Thorough preparation for text structure
instruction involves teachers constructing
and completing all instructional activities
planned for students. This includes
•• Recording the author’s purpose
statements
•• Identifying structural elements
(e.g., problem, effect)
•• Annotating relationships between
structural elements
•• Creating a text map for each chosen
text
•• Scripting a think-aloud
•• Crafting and answering written and
oral questions
Completing these portions in advance
allows teachers to preview the thought
processes needed by students to complete
instructional tasks and anticipate student
misunderstandings.
Ms. Grant and Mr. Robinson decide to use
texts that inform the reader about a
controversial political issue: U.S. immigration
policy. For the modeling portion of the lesson,
they choose a short overview of the history of
immigration policy in the United States. Both
teachers reread the text several times,
completing all steps of the text structure
analysis on a teacher copy of the text.
Ms. Grant will be conducting the think-aloud,
so she crafts a bulleted script of the most
important points to include and creates a
teacher copy of the exemplar text map (see
Figure 3). She shares these materials with
Mr. Robinson and asks for his feedback. Next,
Ms. Grant and Mr. Robinson complete the
same steps with the texts that they select for
guided and independent practice. They also
develop guiding questions that will help
students identify and analyze the text
structures. For example, they may ask
students, “In paragraph 3, what type of
structure is the author using when he explains
push-pull factors of immigration?” Throughout
their preparation, they note any content or
skills that may be difficult for students. For
example, in a text that outlines differing
viewpoints on immigration reform, Ms. Grant
anticipates that students may struggle to
recognize that the author is combining
problem-solution and compare-contrast
structures.
Step 2: Introduce the Lesson
Before teaching new content, teachers
introduce the lesson to students. This step
is crucial to ensuring that students
understand the purpose of the lesson and
make connections to previously learned
strategies and content related to text
structure instruction.
Review relevant knowledge.
When ready to begin the text structure
lesson, teachers review the definition
of text structure and how recognizing
organizational patterns can support
students’ comprehension of informational
texts. Then, students briefly discuss any of
the structure types learned in previous
lessons. In addition, teachers review any
strategies that students have learned for
identifying and analyzing structural
elements (e.g., text maps, guiding
questions, signal words; Lovett et al., 1996).
Discuss objectives. Teachers present
the learning objectives to students and
explain their importance, including
contexts in which students will apply their
learning (Riccomini, Morano, & Hughes,
2017). Importantly, teachers also preview
the strategy that students will use to
achieve the objective, and they explain
how the strategy will benefit students’
learning (Archer & Hughes, 2011).
At the beginning of the lesson, Ms. Grant
displays and reads the following learning
objective to her students: “Students will be able
to identify text structures and analyze their
relationships to the author’s claims or ideas.”
She describes the importance of the objective
and how students might apply their learning.
She says, “Identifying and analyzing text
March/April 2020
structures will help you monitor your reading
comprehension of informational texts. This is
a skill that will help you succeed in all
subjects, such as science and social studies.”
Next, Ms. Grant previews the strategy that
237
 F i g u r e 3 Text structure map example: Causes and effects of the U.S. immigration policy
students will use to achieve the learning
objective. She displays the text map through a
document camera and overhead projector and
identifies its components. To wrap up the
lesson introduction, Ms. Grant explains why
she decided to use the text map to analyze the
relationships between text structures and the
author’s claims or ideas. “A text map is a good
strategy to use when analyzing structural
elements in multistructure texts. This way,
readers can display how texts and their ideas
and claims are organized, which helps to
visualize how these structural elements fit
together. This helps readers check whether or
not the analysis makes sense, which means
that they can monitor how well they are
understanding the text. There are other
strategies that readers use to analyze
structural elements. For example, a note frame
can be used to record information about text
structures. However, this is not the best
TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 52, No. 4
strategy for analyzing multistructure texts,
because it does not help readers visualize how
the structural elements fit together.”
Step 3: Model
The purpose of the modeling portion
of the lesson is for students to learn the
cognitive processes for identifying and
analyzing structural elements (Williams
et al., 2016). Teachers’ thinking is revealed
through a think-aloud, in which teachers
narrate their thoughts and display how
238
they make annotations, responses, or
other markings in the text relevant to the
structure strategies. Before beginning the
think-aloud, teachers read the text aloud
once to students, discuss any unknown
vocabulary words and textual features
(e.g., charts, graphs, images), and have
students state the main idea of the text
(cf. Stevens, Park, & Vaughn, 2018).
Then, teachers review two common
types of purposes for informational texts
(persuade, inform). Finally, teachers
briefly narrate how to determine the
author’s purpose and combine the author’s
purpose and the main idea to write an
author’s purpose statement. Identifying
the main idea and determining the
author’s purpose are essential steps to
analyzing the structure of an authentic
text (Meyer & Poon, 2001; Wijekumar,
Meyer, & Lei, 2017). The reason is that
the reader needs to understand whether
the author is trying to communicate
claims or ideas before analyzing how
the author organizes the text with certain
structures (Meyer, 2003). For example,
during the first reading of the
immigration overview passage,
Ms. Grant completes the following steps
to model how to create an author’s
purpose statement:
In a small group lesson within the general
education classroom, Ms. Grant reads and
displays the passage to students through a
document camera and projector. As she reads,
she pauses to discuss several unfamiliar terms
that are crucial to understanding the text:
“asylum” and “nativist.” She also reviews a
chart that depicts the rise in immigration to
the United States during the midnineteenth
century. Ms. Grant identifies the main idea of
the passage: “There are many factors that have
affected U.S. immigration policy.”
Next, Ms. Grant identifies the purpose of
the text. She needs to determine if the author
is making a claim or providing ideas. If the
author is making a claim, the purpose is to
persuade the reader. If the author is providing
ideas, the purpose is to inform the reader. She
says, “At first, I thought that the author was
making a claim about immigration and that
the purpose of the text may be to persuade the
reader about immigration. This is a very
controversial issue, so I could think that the
author has an opinion and is trying to make
the audience have that same opinion.
However, when we read the text, I see that the
author was just presenting information to the
reader. Therefore, I think the purpose is to
inform the reader. I will combine the purpose
and the main idea to write my author’s
purpose statement at the top of my text map:
The author’s purpose is to inform the reader
that many factors have affected U.S.
immigration policy.”
Next, teachers model and explain the
purpose for the second reading of the text
(Fisher & Frey, 2014). They explain to
students that the purpose of the second
reading is to identify and analyze structural
elements used to achieve the author’s
purpose and develop the author’s claims or
ideas. In a think-aloud format, teachers
annotate the text, labeling structural
elements by underlining them and writing
the name of each element (e.g., problem,
cause) in the margins. After identifying
each element, teachers explain its
importance and how it helps the author
develop the claims or ideas. Furthermore,
they discuss the effect of the structural
element on the reader; in particular, they
emphasize how the element helps achieve
the author’s purpose.
Teachers also model how to illustrate
relationships between elements by
connecting them with arrows.
Throughout the think-aloud, teachers
refer to the text structure guide (see
Figure 1). For example, Ms. Grant begins
her think-aloud in the following way:
On her copy of the text, Ms. Grant points to a
sentence in the first paragraph of the passage.
“In paragraph 1, we read that many Chinese
and Irish immigrants came to America to
work, which led to racial tensions between
Chinese and American workers and religious
tensions between Irish-Catholic and American-
Protestant workers. I ask myself, ‘Why is the
author including this information? Is this
information important to helping the author
inform the reader about factors that have
affected immigration policy?’ I think it is
important because the next sentence says that
racial and religious tensions influenced
lawmakers to restrict immigration based on
religion and nationality. That definitely
means that these tensions affected immigration
policy, which I identified as the main idea of
the passage.
Next, I will take a look at my text
structure guide to support my thinking about
how to identify structural elements in this
section. I can see that the first sentence uses the
phrase ‘led to,’ which is a signal phrase that
sometimes indicates cause-effect structure. But
if that is true, what is the cause, and what is
the effect? I think that in these sentences, the
influx of Chinese immigrants caused, or
resulted in, racial tension.”
Ms. Grant underlines and labels the
pertinent phrases “cause” and “effect.” Then,
she draws an arrow from the cause to the
effect. “However, I think that the author is also
beginning to use another text structure here.
When we read the text the first time, I
remember that the author was listing events
that have happened in U.S. history. The influx
of Chinese and Irish immigrants was the first
event in the text. I can see on my text structure
guide, under ‘Structure Partners,’ that authors
sometimes tell the reader about the results,
or effects, of certain events. I think that is
exactly what the author is doing in these two
sentences! The reader learns about an event in
U.S. history that led to influential racial and
religious tensions.”
Finally, teachers model creating a text
map of structural elements (see exemplar
in Figure 3) to display the organization of
important information that was annotated
in the text (Boon et al., 2015). Text maps
may be created with paper and pencil or a
computer program (e.g., presentation
slides or concept-mapping software).
Step 4: Guided Practice
With Identifying and
Analyzing Text Structures
Following the think-aloud, students are
provided multiple opportunities to
practice applying the learned strategies
(Coiro, 2011). Teacher-formed pairs or
small groups of students work together to
read aloud a new short passage. To
scaffold this gradual release of
responsibility to students with or at risk
for LD, teachers may highlight or
underline sections, paragraphs, or
sentences in the text that are crucial to
communicating the author’s claims or
ideas (Lovett et al., 1996). For students
experiencing particular difficulty, teachers
might also provide a guide for
determining the author’s purpose.
After the first reading of the text,
students use the text structure guide
as they reread and collaborate to
identify the structural element included
in each highlighted section. Teachers
continuously circulate to monitor student
work and probe their thinking (Hughes
et al., 2017). For example, teachers might
ask, “What were the clues in the text that
helped you identify the text structure
type?” Next, the pairs or small groups
collaboratively respond to guiding
questions about the relationships between
structural elements (e.g., How does the
author’s description of the earthquake in El
Salvador relate to the statement that the U.S.
government granted Salvadorans temporary
protected status?). If necessary, teachers
might further scaffold the guiding
questions by offering them in a multiple-
choice format (Meyer et al., 2010). Again,
teachers circulate to redirect
misunderstandings and probe students’
analyses of the structural elements.
After students have completed the
guiding questions, they work together to
create a text map. It is important that the
text map visually represent the
relationships among textual information
(Roehling et al., 2017). Depending on
students’ experience with text structure
mapping, students can finish filling in
blanks on a partially completed map,
complete a blank version of the teacher-
created text structure map, or choose for
themselves the type of map that is
appropriate for the structure and record
the requisite information (Meyer et al.,
2010). As students work, teachers question
students about how their maps represent
the author’s organization of the text’s
structure, including how recorded
information is related or might be labeled a
structural element (Meyer & Poon, 2001).
When students have demonstrated
that they can identify and analyze
predetermined structural elements using
guiding questions and text maps, the
teacher begins to remove instructional
scaffolding and releases additional
responsibility to students (Fisher, Frey, &
Lapp, 2011). In the next portion of guided
practice, pairs or small groups of students
collaborate to read a new short text, write
an author’s purpose statement, annotate
the text to identify structural elements,
and create a text structure map. As they
work, students may still use instructional
supports, such as the text structure guide.
However, students are now responsible
for identifying important sentences,
sections, or paragraphs in the text and are
not supported by guiding questions in
doing so. Yet, teachers are still checking
students’ understanding of text structure
and redirecting any misunderstandings
that may arise. Throughout guided
practice, teachers also conduct targeted
re-teaching (e.g., additional modeling,
guided discussions) on specific skills or
concepts with which the students have
March/April 2020
difficulty (Hughes et al., 2017).
Importantly, students may require
practice with multiple authentic texts
before independently practicing the text
structure strategies.
239
 F i g u r e 4 Text structure map rubric
Step 5: Provide Independent
Practice and Evaluate
Student Learning
Once students have demonstrated that
they are ready to apply the text structure
strategies independently, teachers assign a
new informational text. Students and
teachers follow the same procedures used
in guided practice for identifying and
analyzing text structure. Students are able
to work without peer support at this stage,
but they still require instructional feedback
(Hughes et al., 2017). One means of
providing this is through a text structure
map rubric (see Figure 4). Students
receive a numerical score on the rubric,
as well as specific comments from teachers
that outline strengths and weaknesses of
the text structure analysis represented in
the text map (Meyer et al., 2010). Students
can use this feedback to revise their text
TEACHING Exceptional Children, Vol. 52, No. 4
maps before resubmitting them for further
evaluation. Through these written tasks,
students refine their knowledge and
application of text structure and related
strategies (Williams & Pao, 2011).
Concluding Thoughts
For students with or at risk for LD to
improve their reading comprehension of
informational texts, teachers must
implement explicit scaffolded text
structure instruction (Meyer & Ray, 2011)
240
and provide students opportunities to
apply learned strategies to new texts
(Hebert et al., 2016). General and special
educators, such as Mr. Robinson and Ms.
Grant, can use authentic texts and
gradually increase the relative complexity
of tasks to ensure that their students
experience robust grade-level text
structure instruction that can improve
their ability to use informational texts to
learn content (Pyle et al., 2017).
Funding
The authors received no financial support for
the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
Leah M. Zimmermann, M.Ed., and Deborah
K. Reed, Ph.D., Iowa Reading Research
Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Address correspondence concerning this
article to Leah M. Zimmermann, M.Ed., Iowa
Reading Research Center, University of Iowa,
103 Lindquist Center, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
(e-mail: leah-zimmermann@uiowa.edu).
ORCID iDs
Leah M. Zimmermann
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0594-9114
Deborah K. Reed
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0874-1412
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