Main Idea & Details

Before we left for vacation, I was able to squeeze in a week and a half of Main Idea & Details practice. Since I used to teach Kindergarten, I tend to think that it's best to introduce a strategy by modeling, guide students as they practice using it on their own, and then give them many, many opportunities to practice using the strategy independently. So, after introducing and modeling how to identify the main idea using the anchor chart below, I had them apply the strategy to several passages from my Main Idea Unit and various other resources.

 

I gave them a quick quiz to see how they were doing with the strategy and then divided them up into groups based on the results. Here's how they did overall on the first quiz:

  

(My morning class)

 

(My afternoon class)

After that we really got down to business. I met with small, strategy groups daily, gave them texts at their level to practice applying the strategy, and then gradually increased the difficulty. I provided the kids that were working independently or in partners with a number of different review activities.

 

These two are working on coming up with titles, based on the main idea, for several different articles from Scholastic News. I got this idea from Mary at Teaching With a Mountain View. In my Main Idea unit you will find a worksheet that can be used to do the same thing with any article/passage.

 

These kids are working on identifying the Main Idea and Details of two books by Gail Gibbons that I checked out from our school library. I got this idea and the worksheets that went along with each of the books from the blog Teaching with Blonde Ambition.

 

These guys are working together on the task cards from my Main Idea unit. As usual, the questions are modeled after the IA (Interactive Achievement) Assessment Question Database which allows us to access all of the old quarterly and end of year state-wide tests. 

Another activity (that I didn't get a chance to take a picture of) was a challenge/enrichment activity that I did with the students who passed the first quiz. I had them decide on a topic, come up with a main idea about the topic and three supporting details, and then write a paragraph and see if their friends could identify the main idea of their passage. They really enjoyed doing this and felt like they did it right when their classmates (or I) guessed the main idea correctly. I included a template for this activity in my Main Idea Unit in case you want to try it out!

If you are interested in using any of the resources from my Main Idea Unit, head on over to my TPT shop by clicking on the picture below.