Cement comprehension skills using the strategies in this activity. After reading the story, Juan Verdades by Joe Hays, learners use context clues to answer questions, identify main ideas and details, and sequence events.

Practice outlining and evaluating expository writing in this lesson. After discussing main ideas and seeing examples, young writers go through a sample outline and discuss the way to properly format a piece of writing. They then create...

Quite often, learners confuse the main idea in a selection of reading with the supporting details. In this lesson, pupils practice the skill of finding the main idea and the supporting details in pieces of writing. Newspaper articles...

Reinforce main idea and supporting details with your seventh graders in this language arts lesson. Using a SMART board presentation and handouts (all attachments are provided), they review and practice finding main idea and details in...

Did you hear that? It's the main idea! Teach your class listening and note-taking strategies for determining the main idea by following the steps provided in this plan.

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...

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...

Although this is part of a series, lesson plan nine has your class take a break from their close study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) text to read the firsthand account “Teaching Nepalis to Read, Plant, and...

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...

Readers are presented with a list of three questions and asked to actively listen to a story or article to answer them. They verbally answer the questions to learn the strategy. Next, read a story to them or have them silently read a...

Fourth graders view examples of help-wanted ads as they plan and create their own writing in the fourteenth instructional activity of this unit on colonial trade. The engagement of the class is captured when the teacher shares an actual...

Practice comprehension skills using the story, The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon by Bea Uusma Schyffert. Learners answer questions, fill out graphic organizers, and engage in extension activities involving writing and...

After examining a brief article about the major art periods, readers use the provided graphic organizer to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in the paragraph.

After examining a short passage about the Mississippi River system, readers use the provided graphic organizer to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in the article.

How did the ancient people of Egypt preserve their dead so well that their bodies are still recognizable today? Learn the painstakingly complex process they used for preservation. Young scholars read and summarize a narrative detailing...

A passage about the Magna Carta provides readers with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in an article.

Young readers explore a nonfiction text for its main idea. They will listen to the book Animal Sight by Kirsten Hall, and then observe as the teacher models a main idea think-aloud. Later, for independent practice, they listen to the...

This second lesson in a larger unit is perfect for the beginning of the year because it explicitly teaches 3rd graders how to use close reading skills by identifying unfamiliar words, figuring out the gist, and defining important...

For this ninth lesson plan in a larger beginning-of-the-year unit, close reading skills are used independently to find the gist of the story That Book Woman. Rereading for important details is the targeted skill to unlock a deeper...

Let’s learn about frogs! Young readers are led through “Freaky Frogs,” a non-fiction article. Teach learners how to edit an article so there are fewer details to sift through. After talking through the article, they learn the six steps...

Discuss the environment of the Arctic tundra using this resource. The focus of this lesson is the story A Walk in the Tundra by Rebecca L. Johnson. The appealing illustrations are bound to captivate your class! After reading the...

In instructional activity 13 of this unit on colonial trade, young researchers learn about apprentices as they prepare to write help-wanted ads for the specific trade they have been researching. To begin, the class listens closely as the...

Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...

As part of a group of lessons, your class will return to the primary text for this unit, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Key vocabulary as well as close reading strategies continue to be the focus skills; however, this lesson...