Using Text Features before reading and drawing attention to common text features can help students recognise and identify the main ideas as well as the important key words and key concepts of a topic. Drawing attention to and discussing text features activates prior knowledge, helps students make connections and predictions. Explicitly teaching key reading comprehension and learning skills - making connections, self-questioning, visualising, inferring, determining importance, summarising, synthesising and self-monitoring - can help students become more purposeful, active readers, thinkers and learners.