Text purpose

1. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 Text purpose

2. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 Comprehension means understanding. The best way to understand a text is to ask yourself questions as you read it. The answers to some questions are easy to find, while the answers to others are more difficult to work out.

3. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 Why does a writer write? A writer’s purpose might be to: entertain persuade inform debate an issue instruct sympathise warn or advise describe extend an invitation do several things at once!

4. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 Although any text can be entertaining, depending on the reader’s interests, texts that are specifically written to entertain are: narratives recounts poems scripts They are usually funny, exciting or interesting in some way.

5. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 This is an extract from a poem by Lewis Carroll. Its main purpose is to entertain. “You are old, Father William,” the young man said, “And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head — Do you think, at your age, it is right?” “In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, “I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.”

6. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 Texts that inform, or give information, include: reportssigns and labelswebsitesnewspaper articles handouts and flyers In these texts you can expect to find: • precise nouns • factual adjectives • adverbials of time and place • mainly statements • sequencing of information and events • lists and tables.

7. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 This is an extract from a report on kookaburras. Its main purpose is to inform. Kookaburras are carnivorous. In the wild they eat lizards, snakes, insects, mice and small birds. Which words are precise nouns? Which words are factual adjectives? Which phrase is an adverbial of place?

8. Comprehension Toolkit Text purpose 1 The End