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...

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.

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...

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 instructional activity. Using a SMART board presentation and handouts (all attachments are provided), they review and practice finding main idea...

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...

Ask your learners to synthesize what they know about Waiting for the Biblioburro by writing a well-organized paragraph. Young writers focus on using transition words and including specific details in their paragraphs. The plan allows for...

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...

Let your learners be the judges for a series of case studies that focus on broadcast codes in Canada. In order to familiarize your class with the codes and guidelines that govern the broadcasting industry, in particular Canada's...

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.

With What Do You See at the Pond?, young readers explore pond life and practice reading strategies. Learners first make predictions and then read the simple story independently. After a second read-through with a partner, kids come...

Plant or animal? As part of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt thematic unit Our Earth, learners engage in activities and exercises that provide them with extra support to master the concepts in the unit.

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...

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...

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...

The engaging story Rain School is further explored in the third lesson of a larger unit that explicitly teaches close reading skills by answering questions whose answers can only be found inside the text. Through teacher...

Explicitly explained and delightfully detailed are two ways to describe this tenth lesson plan in a larger unit designed for the first few weeks of third grade. Learners continue to use and develop previously learned close reading...

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...

Down on the Farm is the theme of this series of ESL lessons designed to support reading, speaking, and listening skills. Over three weeks, your learners will have the opportunity to sing songs, play guessing games, create masks,...

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

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...

Film poems? To concluded a poetry unit, writers select one of their own poems and create a film that brings to life the sounds and images of their work. Included with the detailed unit plan are daily lessons, student examples, a list of...

Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...

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...