An information text is a piece of non-fiction writing which gives information about a particular thing (for example: Cleopatra, Ancient Egypt, recycling or volcanoes). Information texts are sometimes called
non-chronological reports, because they are giving information about something without mentioning the order in which it happened.
Features of information texts
Students will usually be asked to research something relevant to their learning, for example: if they are learning about the Victorians in history, they may be asked to research a certain area, such as child labour or Victorian funerals. They will look at various texts and discuss the features:
- main title
- sub-headings
- bullet points
- paragraphs
- pictures and captions.
They will then make
notes on their topic, possibly on a
spider diagram.
Note-making is an important skill and it cannot be taken for granted that children automatically know how to do it! Teachers will model this skill, by reading a sentence shown on the board and then asking children to say which the most important words are. For example, they might show a
paragraph like this:
If a Victorian woman lost her husband she was called a widow. The period of time after her husband's death was called mourning. She would wear black for two years while she was in full mourning. She would then spend a period of six months in half mourning, during which time she would wear grey or lavender clothes.
