Explanation texts

Explanation texts have a global organization which aims to show cause and effect. The broad criteria for judging the quality of information texts of all kinds, good design, coverage and language and illustration, serve in considering the quality of explanation texts. Explanation texts are usually written in the present tense and typically combine a diagram, perhaps a cross-section, with written annotation. The combination of design, illustration and writing that so often governs such texts makes them multimodal. In school, teachers bring in explanation texts to support and extend what is being learnt in lessons across the curriculum. Most publishers of reading programmes for children, for example Oxford University Press, Heinemann, Ginn and Usborne, offer strong non-fiction strands. Their books on science and geography generally link with National Curriculum programmes organized within age ranges and often come with notes for the teacher.