Curated OER
Using Details from the Text
Explore non-fiction comprehension strategies with your class. They will visualize daily activities and label a 4 circle Venn diagram with related phrases. They must identify the overlapping sections as "main ideas," then complete a...
Curated OER
Celebrate Hispanic Heritage: Grades 6-8
To gain a better understanding of Hispanic heritage and culture, as well as to build informational comprehension skill, learners explore facets of Hispanic American History. They engage in a class discussion, research three facts, and...
Curated OER
Juan Verdades
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.
Curated OER
Classifying Defending Information about Main Idea
Students read and highlight important information gathered from text. In this reading strategies lesson, students define classify and then classify the important information they find. Students share and reflect on their answers.
Curated OER
Main Idea
Young scholars are read a book but not told the title. They determine the main idea of the story and possible names for the book. They develop their own story and illustrate them to show their classmates.
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...
K12 Reader
David Copperfield
High schoolers use the provided graphic organizer to demonstrate their ability to identify the main idea and supporting ideas in a passage from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
EngageNY
Determining Main Ideas and Summarizing: Philo Farnsworth’s Early Years
Teamwork makes the dream work! Learners work in groups to analyze pages 2-9 of The Boy Who Invented TV, The Story of Philo Farnsworth. They complete a first read to determine the gist and a second read to identify main idea and...
Curated OER
Read All About it
Learners create and publish a newspaper that reflects and explains pioneer and medieval societies. They become newspaper writers for a specific time period. They adopt a holistic approach to exploring community life in medieval and...
Curated OER
Rachel's Life is in a Hole
Explore how lack of access to water impacts peoples' lives in poor countries. Through text reading and discussion, middle schoolers are presented with the story of a young girl who lives and functions with limited water resources. They...
EngageNY
Taking Notes Using a Graphic Organizer: Inferring About the Importance of Religion in Colonial America
Improve class understanding of colonial times by reading an informational text and filling out the accompanying graphic organizer. Class members work with a partner to read, take notes, make inferences, and synthesize information.The...
Bearsden Academy's English Blog
Close Reading Homework Booklet
Wind turbines, daylight savings time, noise pollution, social problems. To develop close reading skills, high schoolers examine pairs of articles presenting opposing viewpoints of the same topics and respond to questions that...
Curated OER
Fifth Grade Reading
For this reading worksheet, 5th graders complete multiple choice questions where they read 1 page stories and answer comprehension questions. Students complete 25 questions.
Curated OER
Teaching Strategies For Main Idea Lessons
Main Idea Lesson Plans can help teachers make identifying the main idea of a passage a breeze.
Curated OER
Sum It Up !!
Students practice various comprehension strategies to generate the main idea of the text. They encounter unfamiliar concepts and new vocabulary in their quest of the main idea in "Watson's Goes to Burmingham." The Five W's (What, Where,...
Curated OER
Henry's Freedom Box
Third graders create a shipping box from a cardboard material. In this measuring instructional activity, 3rd graders read the book Henry's Freedom Box and discuss the main idea. In the story a slave ships himself to freedom and the...
Curated OER
Elena by Diane Stanley
This story is bound to motivate your class. Learners read a story called Elena by Diane Stanley. The story is about a young woman who marries for love but is soon widowed during the Mexican Revolution. She takes her children to...
Curated OER
Secrets of the Mummies
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...
Curated OER
Rave Reviews
A fun instructional activity that utilizes toys and persuasion! After reading the article, which was written in 2005, pull some advertisements for toys currently being sold. These will be more relevant to your middle and high schoolers....
EngageNY
Summarizing and Synthesizing: Planning for Writing an Apprentice Wanted Ad
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...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 2: Level 12
Ever heard of CTE? A passage about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) provides the text for a reading comprehension check. The subject matter is sure to engage your readers and the questions, based on the passage, assess whether high...
Curated OER
Summarizing with James and the Giant Peach
Elementary readers in literature groups practice summarizing chapter-by-chapter with Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. Focus on main idea, supporting details, and the 5 Ws. Unfortunately, a clever "peach" graphic organizer to which...
Polk Bros Foundation
Collect Evidence to Support an Idea
In order to support an idea, writers must use evidence. Your class members can prepare their evidence with this basic worksheet. Writers note down the topic they are learning about and their own idea. Next, they come up with information...
CC Homestead
Summarize
Designed for third graders but appropriate for older learners as well, this packet of materials underscores the necessity of teaching kids how to summarize, how to identify main ideas and supporting details, and how to ask questions...