Other
Prezi: Main Idea and Supporting Details
Defines and provides examples of the main idea of a paragraph and also explores the meaning of key details.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Informational Text: Determine Central Ideas and Supporting Details
Read a short informational text and determine the main idea and supporting details. Click to check your answers then click on Practice.
Other
Mc Graw Hill: Informational Text: Determing Main Idea and Key Details
In this learning module, students are given a model passage with an explanation of the main idea and supporting details followed by a practice passage with questions.
McGraw Hill
Mc Graw Hill: Informational Text: Determine Central Idea and Supporting Details
To understand a text, you must understand the central idea of the story. Learn how to recognize the central idea and supporting details with this article. Click the links at bottom right.
CPALMS
Cpalms: What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?
[Free Registration/Login Required] For this lesson, students will use What Do You Do With A Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page to identify the main topic and key details using the illustrations and text. Students will work...
SMART Technologies
Smart: Main Idea and Details
The interactive lesson is a review of main idea and supporting details.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Identify the Main Topic and Key Details
This is a practice exercise to help teach how to find the main topic of a passage by looking at key details. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2
Florida Center for Reading Research
Florida Center for Reading Research: Keys to the Main Idea [Pdf]
A lesson plan in which students read a text a complete a graphic organizer to identify the main ideas and supporting details. Materials are included.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Central Idea and Evidence: Sea Turtle Nesting
Students practice finding the central idea and summary of a nonfiction piece about sea turtle nesting.
Read Works
Read Works: Main Idea Kindergarten Unit: What the Book Is Mainly About
[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson uses Amazing Tigers! by Sarah L. Thomson and Ladybugs by Monica Hughes to teach students to use titles, pictures, and text to identify the main idea of an informational text. Ideas for direct...
E Reading Worksheets
E Reading Worksheets: Main Idea Structure and Valentine's Day Worksheet
Written exercises related to identifying the main ideas and details are provided on this module. Students will enjoy learning about Valentine's Day in these text structure exercises.
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Topic & Main Idea
[Free Registration/Login Required] Recognizing the main idea is the key to good comprehension. The main idea is a general idea under which fits all the supporting material of the passage or paragraph. Learn and use three strategies that...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Guidelines for Determining an Author's Main Idea
Follow the steps in this printable PDF to identify the main topic and key details of an informational text.
SMART Technologies
Smart: Identifying Main Ideas & Details
This lesson operates on the Scaffold Instructional of Release model (I do, we do, you do). Students will use the main idea and supporting details to expand understanding of a variety of texts.
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Determine the Central Idea: Human Impacts
Students will learn how to identify the central idea of a text about human impacts by examining key details.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: My First Baseball Game With Q & a Key [Pdf]
"My First Baseball Game" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a boy and his sister going to their first baseball game and learning what it means to be Chicago Cubs fans. It is followed by constructed-response questions which...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Informational Text: Reading Response: Main Ideas & Details [Pdf]
This graphic organizer can be used with students when they read informational text. Students will write the main idea in a central oval and then write four details that support the main idea of this reproducible graphic organizer.
Curated OER
Mc Graw Hill: Part 2 Reading: Informational Text: How Reasons Support Key Points
Get an example of how to identify an author's main idea in a text on this site. Also, learn how to recognize supporting ideas to main ideas presented in a text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2
CPALMS
Cpalms: "Beary" Good Details
This tutorial shares the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as he goes on a bear hunt to find out who has been sneaking into his house. Question words are highlighted to help Baby Bear collect key details to help him solve this...
Read Works
Read Works: Main Idea 1st Grade Unit
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students learn to use titles and supporting details in both fiction and non-fiction texts in order to identify the main idea of the book in this three-lesson unit. The lessons utilize the books Animal...
Florida Center for Reading Research
Florida Center for Reading Research: Exp. Text Structure: Classic Classifying
A lesson plan in which students read a text and write main ideas and supporting details in boxes on a graphic organizer. Materials are included. [PDF]
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Getting to Know Adelita
In this lesson, 1st graders will describe the characters, setting, and key details in "Adelita: A Mexican Cinderella" by Tomie de Paolaby. With guidance and support, students will record the details on a circle map.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Frog and Toad Are Friends
In this lesson for early readers, students will describe the major events in the plot, describe the characters, and ask and answer questions about the first chapter in Frog and Toad Are Friends---Spring.
Read Works
Read Works: Main Idea Kindergarten Unit: Using Details to Create a Title
[Free Registration/Login Required] Lesson uses Amazing Gorillas! by Sarah L. Thomson and In the Wild: Leopards by Stephanie St. Pierreto to teach students how to use textual details to create a title for informational text. Ideas for...