Curated OER
The Best Main Idea
What is the main idea? Interest your young readers with this fun introductory lesson! After selecting several items from a paper bag, the teacher leads learners to determine the big idea for those items. This concept is then applied to...
Curated OER
Finding Main Ideas
Elementary schoolers read paragraphs one at a time in order to pick out the main ideas. They choose which sentences are most important in a paragraph. This type of exercise prepares learners to identify the main idea in longer narratives.
Curated OER
Build Mastery: Main Idea
Use a graphic organizer to get readers thinking about main ideas as they record the who, what, where, when, and why of a story. Consider modeling this process completely before kids do this independently. They fill in five boxes charting...
For the Teachers
Main Idea Outline
Find the main idea in an informational text with a versatile lesson. Three levels of differentiation help you implement the strategy in any age or class level, based on the ability and objectives of your learners.
Curated OER
A Better Class of Journal-ists
Young academics create a current events journal by skimming newspapers for articles that fit defined guidelines for informational texts. After cutting out two articles each week to add to their journals, they write a brief description of...
Curated OER
What's in a Main Idea?
Second graders read newspaper articles. In this language arts lesson, 2nd graders identify the main ideas found in the articles by highlighting them. The entire class selects one interesting article from the sports section to discuss.
Scholastic
Quick as a Cricket Lesson Plan
Teaching young learners about similes is easy as pie with this primary grade language arts activity. Following a class reading of the children's book, Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood, young readers learn the definition of a simile as...
Curated OER
Creating a Chapter Title
Second graders identify the main idea of a selection of text. In this creating a chapter title lesson, 2nd graders discuss how to find the main idea of a chapter, listen to a chapter read aloud, and create a title with explanation.
Curated OER
Find an Animal! Find a Book!
Young scholars identify the themes of different books by classifying their genre. In this genre lesson, students examine a specific animal by reading both a nonfiction and fiction book about the species. Young scholars compare the...
Curated OER
Guidance for Creating Phonics Lessons for Dyslexic Students
Here is a quick and easy guide to help a new teacher build phonics lessons for students with dyslexia. It stresses the importance of fundamental basics while also providing clear and direct instructional practices that will help you...
Curated OER
The Land Around Us - Lesson 3
While the content of this lesson is more specific to the first grade, the directions given to work on a PowerPoint are well written. These directions could be used by anyone, with any content. Younger learners may need help reading the...
Curated OER
Drama: The New Friends
Reader's Theater is a great way to build fluency, intonation, and dramatic flare. The class reads the theater piece, "The New Friends" paying attention to how they express emotion and feeling as they read. They discuss the use of plot,...
Curated OER
What is The Main Idea
Students will investigate why comprehension is a major goal of reading. To comprehend the meaning of text, students must know certain strategies in order to be successful. Form a topic sentence that captures the meaning of a paragraph...
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Short and Sweet
Students explore how to summarize a text while reading. They discuss what it means to summarize. Students read a non-fiction text and practice summarizing the pages they read. They highlight the main ideas and important details within...
Curated OER
Miss Nelson Is Missing/Miss Nelson Is Back- Lesson 4
Young scholars compare two stories. In this compare and contrast lesson, students read Miss Nelson is Missing and Miss Nelson is Back. Young scholars brainstorm similarities and differences in the two stories, use a Venn Diagram to...
Curated OER
Finding the Friendship Dolls, A True Story: How Children Can Create World Peace
Students listen to the book Finding the Friendship Dolls, A True Story: How Children Can Help Create World Peace through Toys. In this world peace lesson, students choose events in the story to create a timeline of those events. Students...
Curated OER
Muggie Maggie - Lesson 5
Students complete activities with the book Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary. In this literature lesson, students discuss new vocabulary words and definitions for Ch. 5. They read Ch. 5 and find synonyms and antonyms for their vocabulary...
Curated OER
Lesson Two: Discover a purpose for keywords
Second graders research a topic in nature. In this research lesson, 2nd graders pick a nature topic and discuss the keywords needed to find more information about that topic. They fill their information out on a organizer.
Curated OER
Native American Culture
Students read a variety of Native American Literature and discuss the main idea by answering critical thinking questions about the poem. Students use context clues to understand the feeling of the Native American culture about the Earth....
Curated OER
Build Masters: Identifying Details
Find key details in books using this note card strategy. Each reader gets six cards with the classic who, what, where, when, why, and how detail prompts. After they read the book, they choose a card and locate a key detail answering the...
Curated OER
Comprehension: Create a Summary from a Narrative Text
If your class can sequence events in a story, are pretty good at retell, and can identify the main point, they are probably ready for reading comprehension through summarizing. This lesson provides a teacher's script that facilitates...
Curated OER
Gingerbread Baby's Point of View #8
Read the story Gingerbread Baby and use these various activities to connect to grammar, art, and point of view. In one activity, learners create character masks. They practice writing verbs on the back of the masks to tell what each...
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Because of Winn-Dixie
Students make connections with the book Because of Winn-Dixie through writing. In this writing instructional activity, students pretend to be the main character and write a letter to her mother, using very descriptive language. ...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Mummies in the Morning Egyptian pyramids, hieroglyphics
Visit the Magic Treehouse and take your class on a trip through time with a reading of the children's book Mummies in the Morning. Using the story to spark an investigation into Egyptian culture, this literature unit engages...