Giant pandas spend many hours each day eating. Almost all of their food is bamboo, and they munch on its stems, shoots and leaves.
4th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 2 of 13
Text Features
Headings, glossaries and indexes
What your child practices
Using the parts of a nonfiction book to find information: reading a table of contents and index, knowing what glossaries, captions, labels and timelines are for, and choosing headings.
Alaska content standards learning standard: RI.4.5; RI.4.7 · headings, glossaries, maps and indexes
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- The table of contents at the front lists chapters and their pages.
- The index at the back lists topics in ABC order. The glossary explains special words.
- Captions explain pictures, headings name sections and timelines show events in order.
Example: Which text feature lists the chapters and their page numbers at the front of a book? It is at the front, not the back. It lists chapters, not word meanings. Answer: the table of contents
Text Features in Alaska
In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 2 of 13 in 4th grade English Language Arts, after Reading Detectives and before Figurative Language.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
- 4th grade guide for Alaska parents
- Printable 4th grade English Language Arts sheet
- Alaska report cards explained
Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
Why do authors add labels to a diagram?
- To make the picture bigger
- To list the chapters
- To show the page numbers
- To name the parts of the picture
To name the parts of the picture
Hint: Labels are words with lines pointing to parts of a picture.
Question 2
Which sentence would make the best caption for a photo of a beaver dam?
- Beavers pile sticks and mud across a stream to build a dam.
- Chapter 3: Forest Animals
- dam: a wall that holds back water
- beavers, 12, 15–17
Beavers pile sticks and mud across a stream to build a dam.
Hint: A caption is a sentence or two that tells about the picture. The others are a chapter title, a glossary entry and an index entry.
Question 3
Which heading best fits this section?
- What Pandas Eat
- How Pandas Sleep
- Where Pandas Live
- Baby Pandas
What Pandas Eat
Hint: A good heading tells what the whole section is about. What does every sentence describe?
Question 4
Which part of this book should you use to learn about creatures that live far below, where it is always dark?
Amazing Oceans: Table of Contents Chapter Page Waves and Tides 3 Life in the Shallows 9 The Deep Sea 16 Coral Reefs 22 Protecting Our Oceans 28 Glossary 33 Index 35 - Index
- The Deep Sea
- Waves and Tides
- Protecting Our Oceans
The Deep Sea
Hint: Read each title and ask which one fits the topic. Remember: a glossary explains words, and an index lists every page a topic is on.
Question 5
What does a chart or table help readers do?
- learn who wrote the book
- find the meaning of a word
- see where a place is
- compare information quickly
compare information quickly
Hint: Tables put facts in rows and columns so you can look across and compare them.
Question 6
A word in a nonfiction book is printed in dark, bold letters. What does that usually mean?
- It is the author's name
- It is a word you can skip
- It is spelled wrong
- It is an important word, often explained in the glossary
It is an important word, often explained in the glossary
Hint: Authors use bold print to make key words stand out.