Text Structure

Abstract

Text structure is key shared knowledge between writers and readers. Both writing and reading are essential skills for students through their academic, social, and professional lives. This review provides a 40-year history of text structure research and highlights the work of Bonnie J.F. Meyer, the recent growth in cross-language studies, and meta-analyses about text structure interventions in K-12 schools. The Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy (ITSS) and its adaption for native Spanish speaking students (SWELL) are presented in the contexts of historical and contemporary research about the text structure strategy. Improvement in reading comprehension, main idea generation, and written summaries with web-delivered ITSS for students in Grade 4, 5, and 7 has received recognition as strong evidence-based research by What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence for Every Student Succeeds Act. Factors that boost text structure strategy results have been identified (i.e., teach more than one text structure) and other factors are increasingly examined by new investigators (i.e., adaptations for students with learning difficulties). Other contemporary topics in this review related to text structure and writing reviewed include multiple text reading and writing tasks and transfer between languages for bilingual college students when writing. Implications of the recent findings reviewed are discussed in terms reading and writing instruction and future research.