Professional Development
Science texts are designed to help readers think about phenomena that cannot be directly observed. Unlike narrative texts, they rely on multiple representations to communicate ideas about systems, structures, processes, and evidence. Text features are not supplemental supports layered onto the “real” text. They are integral conceptual tools that carry meaning in ways sentences alone cannot.
In KnowAtom classrooms, nonfiction reading is not about teaching students to identify headings, captions, or diagrams as discrete reading skills. It is about helping students use those features to reason about the natural world and to prepare for investigation, modeling, and evidence-based discussion. When text features are treated as conceptual tools, they strengthen sensemaking for all learners, including English learners, without reducing cognitive demand or oversimplifying content.
This article examines why text features exist in science texts, how they function conceptually, and how their use develops across grade bands within KnowAtom’s phenomena-based lesson structure.
Why Text Features Exist in Science Texts
Scientific ideas often involve interactions, scales, and patterns that are difficult to express through linear prose alone. Diagrams, charts, maps, tables, and captions exist because they make complex relationships visible. They allow readers to see how parts connect, how variables change, and how evidence supports or challenges an explanation.
Research on disciplinary literacy shows that scientists do not read science texts straight through from beginning to end. Instead, they move fluidly between written explanations, visuals, and data displays, using each representation to test and refine their understanding (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). From this perspective, text features are not aids for comprehension. They are core components of how scientific meaning is constructed and communicated.
In KnowAtom lessons, nonfiction reading appears early in the instructional sequence, before students design investigations or build physical models. The purpose of reading at this stage is to surface initial ideas, conceptual tensions, and explanatory possibilities connected to the unit phenomenon. Text features play a critical role in this process because they help students begin organizing their thinking before they encounter firsthand data.
How Diagrams, Captions, and Charts Anchor Meaning
Different text features perform different kinds of conceptual work.
A diagram often represents structure, spatial relationships, or system components that cannot be directly observed. A caption clarifies what the reader should attend to and why that representation matters. A chart or table organizes information so patterns, comparisons, or trends can be examined and discussed.
For example, in an upper-elementary unit focused on sound, students encounter diagrams that model how waves transfer energy. The diagram is not included to reinforce vocabulary labels. It supports a conceptual shift: energy moves through a medium without matter traveling from one place to another. The caption directs attention to what is changing and what remains constant, preparing students to connect the diagram to evidence they will later gather during investigations.
Similarly, in middle school units, charts and graphs often appear before students collect their own data. These representations establish expectations for how evidence is organized and interpreted in the discipline. Students are not asked to memorize the chart. They are invited to use it as a reference point for reasoning about patterns and claims they will later test themselves.
Teaching Students Why a Feature Is There
A key distinction between surface-level reading instruction and thinking-centered instruction lies in how teachers frame text features.
Rather than directing students to “use the diagram” or “read the chart,” master teachers make the purpose of the representation explicit through questions such as:
- What idea is this feature helping us understand?
- Why might a scientist choose to show this information visually rather than only in words?
- What questions does this representation raise for us about the phenomenon?
These questions align closely with KnowAtom routines such as Picture Thinking and Wonders because they position text features as objects for inquiry. Students are not asked to identify features for compliance. They are asked to interpret and interrogate them as sources of meaning.
For English learners, this approach is especially powerful. Research shows that multilingual learners benefit when instruction emphasizes shared meaning-making through multiple representations rather than simplified text or reduced conceptual demand (Gibbons, 2015). When diagrams, images, and data displays become central thinking tools, students can participate fully in scientific reasoning even as they continue developing academic language.
Using Text Features as Discussion Backdrops
In KnowAtom classrooms, text features frequently function as shared reference points for discourse.
Rather than assigning silent work tied to individual comprehension questions, teachers often project or distribute a diagram or chart and facilitate collective discussion. Students point, describe relationships, compare patterns, and ask questions grounded in the representation itself.
This practice reflects research on visible thinking, which emphasizes that understanding deepens when thinking is externalized and socially negotiated (Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, 2011). The text feature becomes a thinking space where ideas are surfaced, challenged, and refined.
Importantly, this discourse does not interrupt the lesson flow. It advances the conceptual arc of the unit, supporting later concept mapping, investigation design, and evidence-based consensus building. Reading, discussion, and investigation are not separate phases. They are interconnected sensemaking moves.
Progression Across Grade Bands
K–2 — Identifying Meaning Through Images
In the primary grades, text features are often images accompanied by minimal text. While students may not yet decode complex sentences, they are capable of reasoning about what they see.
For example, in kindergarten units focused on motion or weather, photographs and simple diagrams show objects being pushed, pulled, heated, or cooled. Teachers invite students to describe what is happening and why, using gestures, oral language, and emerging academic vocabulary. The image carries the core idea, while discussion helps students refine their thinking.
At this level, the goal is not naming text features. It is helping students recognize that images in science texts exist to communicate important ideas about how the world works.
Grades 3–5 — Connecting Features to Claims
In upper elementary grades, students increasingly connect text features to scientific claims.
In a Grade 3 unit on magnetism, for example, diagrams of magnetic interactions and tables comparing magnet strength support arguments about cause and effect. Teachers press students to explain how the representation supports a claim rather than asking them to restate what it shows.
This shift reflects growing expectations for evidence-based reasoning. Text features become sources of evidence that students learn to reference, compare, and question as part of scientific discourse.
Grades 6–8 — Evaluating Evidence Across Representations
By middle school, students are expected to integrate information across multiple representations.
In units focused on matter, energy, or ecosystems, students encounter particle diagrams, data tables, and explanatory text that must be interpreted together. No single feature provides a complete explanation. Students evaluate whether representations are consistent with one another and sufficient to support a model or explanation.
At this level, text features support analytical reading practices that mirror those used by scientists. Students weigh evidence across representations and recognize both the power and the limitations of each tool.
What This Looks Like in a Thinking-First Classroom
When text features are treated as conceptual tools, classroom dynamics shift. Teachers spend less time emphasizing procedural uses of text features (e.g., asking students to circle a diagram, label a chart, name a text feature on a worksheet, or follow directions such as “underline the caption” or “use the table”) and more time asking interpretive questions about meaning and purpose. Students return to diagrams and charts during investigations and discussions because those representations help them think, not because they were instructed to do so.
For related perspectives on how representations and tools shape student understanding, see What does it look like when technology strengthens student voice in discussion? and When do simulations deepen understanding—and when do they get in the way?.
Teacher Look-Fors
Teachers often notice the following indicators when text features are functioning as conceptual tools:
- Students spontaneously referencing diagrams or charts during discussion and investigation
- Increased use of precise language grounded in shared visual representations
- Stronger coherence between reading, modeling, and hands-on investigation
- English learners contributing ideas through images and data before formal writing
These signals suggest that text features are doing the work they were designed to do: supporting scientific sensemaking.
References
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Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning (2nd ed.). Heinemann.
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Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible. Jossey-Bass.
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Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2012). What is disciplinary literacy and why does it matter? Topics in Language Disorders, 32(1), 7–18.