Reading Strategies
On the OSSLT, you'll find several different kinds of texts:
Informational Texts
Informational texts are texts designed to communicate some specific information to you. They're usually non-fiction. Some examples include:
- Information paragraph (225 to 250 words)
- Gives you ideas and information about a specific topic
- News report (225 to 250 words)
- A news story like what you might see in The Ottawa Citizen,or The Globe and Mail. It includes a headline and a picture as well as the text
Narrative Texts
Narrative texts are texts that tell some kind of story. Some examples include:
- Dialogue (225 to 250 words)
- A conversation between at least two people (sometimes more)
- Real-life narrative (550 to 600 words)
- A story or an account of an important event or an important moment in someone's life
Graphic Texts (fewer than 150 words)
Graphic texts are texts that include major graphic features like images, charts, diagrams, etc. These texts are usually non-fiction texts. Some examples include things like:
- A map with things like labels, text boxes, lines, charts, symbols, etc.
This map is an example of a graphic text. It's got a combination of images, diagrams, graphs, and text that all work together to create meaning.
Check out the Hand, Head, Heart page to learn how to decipher what the OSSLT is asking you to do. If you know what the question wants you to say, it's a lot easier to get as many marks as possible!
EQAO has some useful pointers on reading strategies that can be useful both in the OSSLT and beyond the test. Here are some of the things they suggest:
