What is a text aid?

Text aids, also called text features, are visual elements on a page that stand out from the main text. The reader uses text features to help understand the content. Some examples of text aids are titles, bold or italic print, diagrams, maps, tables, charts and maps.

Text aids are predominately used in nonfiction text. Text features focus the reader's attention on specific parts of the text, and help the reader identify important ideas in the reading. Aids in the form of pictures or graphs give the reader additional information to support that found in the text. Text aids are also useful for previewing text.