Explaining ideas in informational texts

0:00- [David] Readers, hey. Today we're digging into those two most important questions: what's happening and why is it happening? Today we're gonna be talking about explaining ideas in informational texts. And an informational text is just like it sounds. It's a text that gives you information, right?

0:16That could be information about science, history or some other subject. And these texts can discuss complex topics and include lots of details, and sometimes that can get a little overwhelming. But I'm going to show you a simple way to help you better understand and explain what's happening in an informational text.

0:35So when you're reading a text and you need to explain ideas or events in that text, ask yourself two simple questions. Question one, what happened? Question two, why did it happen? So let's put this into practice with a text about a kind of bamboo, which is a tall tree-like plant that pandas eat and that people eat.

0:55Bamboo shoots are delicious. Okay, here's the text. In the forests of China, there's a kind of bamboo, moso bamboo, that grows faster than any other plant in the world. Bamboo forests are thick and dark, so the best way for these plants to reach sunlight is to grow upwards very quickly.

1:12Bamboo plants store food and energy in their underground stems. When these stems send up a young bamboo plant, it shoots up very fast. Some species of giant bamboo can grow 44 inches in a single day. So bamboo, let us ask the first question. What happened? Let me say it in my own words. The bamboo grew super fast.

1:34How do I know that? It's right there in the first sentence, right? This one kind of bamboo grows faster than any other plant in the world. And there at the end, 44 inches of growth in a single day. That's more than three and a half feet. So now our question is why? Why did it happen?

1:49Why does it grow so fast? Well, we must look for details in the text. What specific details in the text explain why this kind of bamboo grows so fast? Okay, so the text says, "Bamboo forests are thick and dark." This sounds like it's describing a potential problem for plants not having enough sunlight.

2:11I know that plants need sunlight. So how does bamboo get sunlight? The next part of the sentence tells me that the best way for these plants to reach sunlight is to grow upwards very quickly. That's part of our why, the bamboo grows quickly to get sunlight. Why else? Why else do they grow so fast?

2:30The text says that a bamboo plant's underground stems store food and energy so that they can send up a stick of bamboo lightning fast so that the bamboo can reach sunlight speedily. This is another part of our why. So I'll recap. What happened? Moso bamboo grew super fast.

2:45Why does it do that? It needs to reach sunlight. And to do that, it uses stored up energy from its underground stems to grow quickly. Questions answered. (hand banging) Congratulations. You've just analyzed a scientific text with me. You're a scientist now. That's how this works.

3:02Asking what happened and why did that happen aren't just questions for scientists, of course. You can use them to understand pretty much any informational text. It can be fun to do this with the things you read, pulling them apart, asking, "Why did that happen?

3:16How did that happen?" Building that skill makes you a better reader. So good luck out there, scientists. May your informational texts be detailed and easy to understand, and good luck out there, pandas. May your bamboo grow swiftly and may you never lack treats.

3:34And while we're at it, good luck out there, Panda scientists. Ooh, that's a TV show. Okay, you can learn anything. David, out.