Our grade three students have been learning more about informational text and will soon begin writing an informational piece. Third grade is a year when many of our students are beginning to use the internet in addition to books to learn more about a topic. In grade three, we are making this transition to gathering information online with a series of lessons geared to our students. Our first lesson is on reading informational text online. We start with a review of the informational text features they have learned about when reading books. We make that transition to how these text features will look online. Some of the features will look the same like headings, types of print, bulleted and numbered lists, insets and sidebars, captions, labels, images, cutaways, maps, diagrams, and timelines. Some of the features will look different like the table of contents, index, and glossary. Online resources will also offer some features that cannot be obtained through a book like videos, sounds and animations. Once the students have seen some examples of what the text features look like, they go on an online scavenger hunt to find these features in a web site.
In addition to looking at what the online text features look like, the students also brainstorm types of informational sites they can gather information from. At ASW, we have a variety of online databases like PebbleGo and Culture Grmas, we use online magazines and encyclopedias, and video libraries like Brainpop and Brainpop Jr.
In addition to looking at what the online text features look like, the students also brainstorm types of informational sites they can gather information from. At ASW, we have a variety of online databases like PebbleGo and Culture Grmas, we use online magazines and encyclopedias, and video libraries like Brainpop and Brainpop Jr.