Guiding Your Reader with Layout

English · Writing Composition · ages 10-11

Name ______________________ Date ____________

Which layout feature would help a reader jump straight to the section about 'Feeding your hamster' in a longer guide?
- A heading
- A long paragraph
- A single sentence
Bullet points can make a list of steps easier to scan than a paragraph.
Circle one: True False
You want to compare the top speed of three different cars. What layout tool shows this best?
- One long paragraph
- A table with rows and columns
- A single bullet point
Look at this list: bullet Water the plant, bullet Give it sunlight, bullet Check the soil. How many bullet points are there?
Answer: ______________
Priya wants to show how size, diet, and habitat differ between three types of sharks. Which layout works best?
- A single long sentence naming all three sharks
- A table with a row for each shark and columns for size, diet and habitat
- A heading with no supporting text
A student is writing a guide with three main topics: types of weather, causes, and effects. What is the best way to organise it?
- Write everything as one paragraph
- Put all the facts in a single bullet list
- Use a heading for each of the three topics
Jun is comparing the population, area, and climate of two countries. He writes two separate paragraphs, one for each country, repeating the same three facts. What change would make the comparison easier to read?
- Turn it into a table with the countries as rows and the three facts as columns
- Add one heading titled 'Countries'
- Make the paragraphs longer
A recipe guide has every step in one long paragraph, with no headings or bullet points. What is the biggest problem this causes for the reader?
- It uses too many pictures
- It repeats the title too many times
- It's hard to scan and quickly find a single step or ingredient

Answer key

For grown-ups. Fold this page away before handing over the rest.

Guiding Your Reader with Layout W1-mt_AHAFw-atka-s1

A heading · A heading names the section, so the reader can jump straight to it instead of reading everything.
True · Bullet points break steps into separate, scannable pieces instead of one dense block of text.
A table with rows and columns · A table lines up the same facts for each car side by side, so they are easy to compare.
3 · Three lines, each starting with a bullet: that is three bullet points.
A table with a row for each shark and columns for size, diet and habitat · A table with sharks as rows and size, diet and habitat as columns lets the reader compare each shark at a glance.
Use a heading for each of the three topics · A heading for each topic breaks the guide into clear parts the reader can find and follow.
Turn it into a table with the countries as rows and the three facts as columns · A table puts each country's facts in its own row, so population, area and climate line up in columns for easy comparison.
It's hard to scan and quickly find a single step or ingredient · Without headings or bullets, the reader has to read the whole paragraph just to find one step.