Using Expository Text in the Secondary Classroom - Essay Example

Moreover, Hall, Sabey, and McClellan (2005) indicate that effective use of expository text between early childhood and middle school classrooms helps decrease the decline in reading scores. Akhondi, Malayeri, and Samad (2011), in complementing claims by Hall, Sabey, and McClellan (2005), show that teachers may find teaching expository texts and their structures as an effective technique for improving the common reading achievements. The structure of expository text is such that it facilitates the study process in prospective readers because the structure contains elements that guide a student through the reading.

Students who comprehend the concept of expository text structure as well as the way to analyze it are capable of learning more than their counterparts who lack this understanding. Therefore, students’ comprehension skills in reading improve when they acquire this knowledge with regard to the development of text structure and its proper use (Akhondi, Malayeri & Samad, 2011). Knowledge of rhetorical relations between main ideas and sustaining details enhances a reader’s comprehension of expository text.

This results from text features in expository texts capable of helping a reader to find and organize information within a text. For instance, heading in middle school text introduces a student to detailed bits of information, which helps the student to keep each bit of information within the short-term memory. This allows the student to process or even connect the information to background knowledge and later store it to the long-term memory. Without headings, information presented in expository text would be overwhelming to the middle school students because it would be difficult to process it effectively (Akhondi, Malayeri & Samad, 2011).

Since expository texts’ structural elements vary, it is essential that middle school students be introduced to the components throughout the year. This