Teaching Text Structure at 3 Levels: Sentence, Paragraph, and Text

By explicitly teaching text structure at three levels—sentence, paragraph, and text—we can help our students build the skills they need to read with confidence. Understanding text structure is key to reading comprehension, but many students struggle to make sense of how ideas connect within and across texts. The Science of Reading (SOR) tells us that comprehension is not just about recognizing words—it’s about understanding how words, sentences, and paragraphs work together to create meaning.

1. Teaching Text Structure: Sentence-Level The Foundation

Comprehension starts at the sentence level. If students don’t understand how sentences are structured, they’ll struggle to follow the meaning of a paragraph or an entire text. Teaching students about syntax, conjunctions, clauses, and phrases can make a huge difference in their ability to comprehend what they read.

How to Teach It:

• Focus on syntax by explicitly teaching different sentence types (simple, compound, and complex) and their functions.
• Use sentence combining and deconstructing activities to help students see how parts of a sentence work together. For example, take two simple sentences and have students combine them using conjunctions.
• Teach transition words to show how ideas connect within sentences (e.g., cause/effect, compare/contrast).

Try This: Display a passage with multiple sentence structures and have students identify the subject, verb, and key phrases. Then, ask them how the sentence structures impact meaning.

2. Teaching Text Structure: Paragraph-Level Connecting Ideas

Paragraphs come in different structures and lengths, and it’s essential for students to understand how they are organized and how they contribute to the overall meaning of a text. Recognizing paragraph structure helps students see how ideas are introduced, developed, and connected, which strengthens their ability to summarize, infer, and analyze information.

By explicitly teaching students how paragraphs function—whether through main idea and details, compare and contrast, or cause and effect structures—you equip them with the tools to navigate complex texts and build deeper comprehension.

How to Teach It:

• Explicitly teach paragraph structures (e.g., main idea & details, compare/contrast, cause/effect). Anchor charts and guided practice can help students recognize these patterns.
• Use paragraph mapping to help students visualize how a paragraph is organized. For example, highlight the topic sentence in one color, supporting details in another, and the concluding sentence in a third.
• Have students practice writing structured paragraphs by focusing on clear topic sentences and supporting details.

3. Teaching Text Structure: Text-Level Seeing the Big Picture

At the highest level, students need to understand how sections, paragraphs, and sentences work together to create a cohesive text. Recognizing text structures—like sequence, problem/solution, or description—helps students predict and process information effectively.

How to Teach It:

• Expose students to multiple text structures by using mentor texts that demonstrate different formats.
• Use graphic organizers to help students track how ideas connect across an entire passage.
• Encourage students to compare different texts and analyze how the structure impacts their understanding.

Try This: Give students two texts on the same topic but with different structures (e.g., one narrative and one informational). Have them compare how the information is presented and discuss which structure makes the topic easier to understand.

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By explicitly teaching text structure at these three levels, you’re setting students up for success in reading and writing. The Science of Reading emphasizes explicit instruction and scaffolded learning, which is exactly what this approach provides.

• Sentence-level instruction builds fluency and understanding of grammar.
• Paragraph-level instruction helps students organize and process ideas.
• Text-level instruction develops deep comprehension and critical thinking.

When students grasp how texts are structured, they become more confident readers and writers who can approach any text with a clear strategy for understanding it.

This method not only makes text structure easier to teach, but it also helps students develop the skills they need for long-term comprehension success. Try incorporating sentence, paragraph, and text-level instruction into your lessons this week and see the difference it makes in your students’ understanding!

Take the Next Steps!

1. Want ready-to-use resources for teaching text structure? Join The Stellar Literacy Collective for access to lesson plans, anchor charts, and guided activities that make teaching text structure easier and more effective. Let’s help students become stronger, more strategic readers—one sentence, paragraph, and text at a time!
2. Want to dive deeper into this topic? We have just what you need! We’re throwing it back to Episode #199 of The Stellar Teacher Podcast, where we discuss all things text structure.
3. Follow us on Instagram @ thestellarteachercompany for free support and educational tips and tricks. We love to connect with teachers in our audience!