This lesson uses the book Explorers of North America - A True Book by Brendan January to teach students how to identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text and specific paragraphs within the text. Students are guided...

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]

A short explanation of how to use explicit details in an informational text to make inferences. Click on Model at the bottom right to see a model with examples.

A lesson plan in which students read a text and complete a graphic organizer to identify the topic and supporting details or facts. Materials are included.

This instructional activity is a final step towards supporting students to practice writing an informative/explanatory paragraph conveying complex ideas and presenting information clearly and accurately. Second-grade students can usually...

Links to 75 lessons and activities that build student skills in standard SL.4.4: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to...

Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for a more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate...

In this lesson plan, 5th graders use their prior knowledge and inference skills to determine uses of unfamiliar objects. They participate in group discussions and analyze the key information they have in order to reach conclusions.