ABSTRACT
Expository text is often neglected in the elementary school curriculum even though most of the reading that children do in school is of that type. Most of the research that demonstrates the importance of text structure in reading comprehension and the benefits that accrue from instruction in text structure deals with children at or above the 4th grade. Text structure is inherent in a text's organizational pattern, which reflects the logical connections among the ideas in the text. These patterns are not limited to text; they represent general rhetorical structures. Although many children start school with an awareness of narrative text structure, few have an awareness of expository text structure. This is in part because most of the reading that parents do with their preschool children is from storybooks. Another reason why expository text is difficult to comprehend is that it appears in a variety of different organizational structures.
