This exploratory study describes the instructional strategies and related activities a first grade teacher and I used to promote engagements with an informational text in one rural Jamaican primary school. Some of the instructional strategies and activities which we used included making connections as a bridge from the known to the unknown, read-alouds, echo and choral readings to increase content knowledge and expand vocabulary and look-backs to gather and write important facts about bananas. In presenting the results of this study, I concur with other researchers that informational texts have the potential to positivefy influence young students' motivation to read and write, increase their content learning and expand their vocabulary, and conceptual understanding of specific suiject matter such as science. The study supports providing reading and writing of informational texts for Jamaican students in the primary grades.