EngageNY
Main Ideas in Informational Text: Analyzing a Firsthand Human Rights Account for Connections to Specific Articles of the UDHR
Lesson 10 in a series of human rights lessons focuses on the skills of finding evidence and summarizing. Your young readers work to compare the two texts they have read in this unit: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
Curated OER
Let's Find the Main Ideas!
Third graders examine how finding the main ideas and summarizing increases their reading comprehension. They read "The Sea in Danger" while applying the six rules of summarization in a modeled instructional activity. Next, working in...
Curated OER
Shorten the Length
Learn how to summarize by identifying main ideas and supporting details. Readers cross out unimportant information as they read through a text. Is it a random detail? Cross it out! They then draw a concept map, placing the main idea in...
Curated OER
Main Idea in Informational Text
Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. For this literacy lesson, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and supporting...
Curated OER
Only the Facts
Practice the strategy of summarizing to gain meaning and knowledge from an informational text. Young readers highlight supporting details and main ideas, and then they use this to summarize two articles: "The Great Quake" and "What...
Polk Bros Foundation
A Way to Analyze Paragraphs to Figure Out the Main Idea of a Nonfiction Text
Shrink up a section by asking pupils to write down the main idea for each of seven paragraphs. There is a space provided for each main idea. When students have completed this portion, they write down what they think to be the central...
Worksheet Web
What did it Say? – Summarizing
Provide scholars with an opportunity to practice summarizing text with a two-page learning exercise. Learners read poems, share stories with their peers, and summarize their new-found-knowledge.
Curated OER
Main Idea in Informational Text
Individuals complete a pre-assessment to gauge their ability to determine the main idea and supporting details in nonfiction text. They examine a new piece of nonfiction reading by looking at the table of contents, headings, and index...
Curated OER
Summarization Superstars
How do you read when you know you're going to be summarizing a text? Summarize a nonfiction text with your upper elementary schoolers. Your pupils independently read a nonfiction article and write a summary paragraph using the six-step...
Curated OER
Transportation Workers
Summarizing a text means being able to identify supporting details. Your class can learn about transportation workers in Chicago as they read a one-page informational passage. When they are finished reading they'll explain what they've...
Pearson Longman
Back Talk: A Summarizing Activity
Here's resource that presents step-by-step directions for three different activities that ask kids to read a short passage, listen for the main points, and then to summarize the passage in their own words.
Curated OER
Main Idea 2
Eighth graders explore the main idea of stories. In this literacy lesson, 8th graders summarize the last TV show they watched, identify the main idea of the show, and list its supporting details. After a discussion of main ideas, they...
Curated OER
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Read an article about the migration of our ancestors and write a paragraph. Pupils paraphrase and summarize to restate the information found in a nonfiction text. They write a shortened version of the reading to demonstrate the...
Curated OER
Short, Sweet, and to the Point
Students read a passage from a magazine. They highlight the main ideas and facts they feel are important and black out the unimportant details. They review the concept of summarizing and use the highlighted text to write a summary with...
Curated OER
Summarizing
Third graders examine how to summarize the most important details in a reading passage in order to increase their comprehension. They design a story web using the summarization skills. Before class, they complete a reading assignment...
Curated OER
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
Space Food
What do astronauts eat in outer space? Kids can read an informational passage to learn about space food. The passage includes prompts that have learners identify the main idea and key details, then write a paragraph summarizing the text....
Curated OER
Mapping Out the Story
Discuss the reading comprehension strategy of summarization with your elementary schoolers! They read a chapter from their social studies textbook, Regions Near and Far, and create a map, or word web, for the chapter. They identify...
Curated OER
Summing it all Up...In Your Own Words
Students observe and demonstrate the steps to identifying the main ideas of a text. They listen to the teacher read a paragraph and model the steps of summarizing the main idea. Students then independently read a different paragraph...
Curated OER
What's the Main Idea?
Fourth graders comprehend what they are reading. An effective strategy for comprehension is summarization. They single out and explaining the main ideas of a passage. Students find a sentence or rewrite their own that covers...
Curated OER
What's the Point?
Students identify the components of a political cartoon and formulate the main ideas.
Curated OER
Teaching Summarization
Examine the process of summarizing a piece of text using the book So You Want to Be a President? Kids review the definitions for main idea, topic sentences, superordinate terms, and supporting details. Next, they work in small...
Curated OER
Today’s Telephone
Does your class know the history behind today's telephone? They will after reading a very interesting one-page informational passage. They'll learn all about the way phones have progressed to the amazing devices they've become as they...
Curriculum Corner
Informational Text Graphic Organizers
Scholars delve into an informational text with the help of four pages that focus on the author's purpose, vocabulary words, summarization, and main idea.