What is an Informational Text?

An Informational Text is a piece of non-fiction writing that aims to educate or inform the reader about a topic. Unlike fiction or some other types of nonfiction texts, an informational text doesn’t use characters. It presents information in a way that helps the reader learn more about something that they are interested in. Some examples of informational texts are: biographies, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, or instructional manuals. (Source: www.twinkl.com)

Reading informational texts helps young students develop background knowledge, which increases their comprehension ability by enabling them to make sense of new ideas. Additionally, informational texts have the potential to motivate students to read more by tapping into their personal interests. Encouraging students to explore a broad array of informational texts can help them see that the real world is as interesting and amazing as any fictional one. MaryRuth Books offers many fiction and nonfiction/informational leveled readers, suggested and used by Reading Recovery® and Guided Reading educators, when teaching Early Fluent readers.

It’s not just how much students read that matters. It’s also what they read. Students need to read and be able to understand nonfiction/informational texts in the same way as they do fiction. Informational texts help students grow their vocabularies by introducing subject-specific new words. (Download a complete list of glossary words introduced in our nonfiction/informational titles here.)