Mastering Main Idea

Procedure

Day One
The first lesson introduces the concept of main idea and supporting details. Students are required to read a passage, summarize it, and find the main idea and supporting details in each of the two paragraphs.

Anticipatory Set:
The lesson begins with a quick review of summarizing. Students read three sentences in their reading packets. (“It was hot and sticky. The sun was bright. Then a thunderstorm hit.”) The students are informed that to summarize information is to put the most important information in your own words. Students summarize statements about the weather by saying it was a day when the weather was uncomfortable. Students are required to summarize their day. Students are informed that summarizing is a beneficial tool to utilize, and is a necessary prerequisite skill for mastering main idea.

Modeling and Guided Practice:
After students have mastered the concept of summarizing, they take the pretest to determine what they know about main idea and supporting details. Students are each given a paragraph and are asked to identify the main idea and supporting details. The teacher does a quick and informal check to assess what students already know. One student that correctly identifies the main idea and supporting details shares what he did and what he knows about main idea and details, with the group. Students turn to page 18 in their Triumphs reading books. The students read a brief paragraph about main idea and details. The passage reads: “The main idea is the most important point of a paragraph or a section. A main idea may be stated or unstated. The details give information that supports the main idea.” Students turn to page 19 and read a brief passage about a cactus plant.

The passage reads:

“A cactus is an amazing plant. It can live in hot desert sand. A cactus has a big green trunk. The cactus drinks water at dusk and stores it in its trunk. The cactus can use the water when the desert is dry.
Cactus can be a home for animals. Birds and bugs live in the trunk. Pack rats dig tunnels under it to make homes. They put things that shimmer on top of the nest. The cactus plant is the life of the desert.”

Students identify the main idea and supporting details of each paragraph. As a group, students create a main idea and details graphic organizer to determine the main idea and details, in the sequence in which they were presented in the passage. The teacher records the information students give about main ideas and details on a large version of the main idea/details chart on the overhead.

Independent Practice:
Students use the main ideas and details chart from the overhead/transparency to summarize the main idea. Students write their responses on a sheet of paper.

Closure:
Students turn to a partner and share their summary and then volunteer to share with the group.

Day 2
Students are required to read the story “In the Hot Sand.” They summarize and find the main ideas and supporting details from the story.

Anticipatory Set:
The lesson begins with a quick review of main idea and supporting details. The teacher reads the first paragraph of the story the students are required to read during the guided practice. It reads, “Are you a pack rat? A pack rat is a person who collects lots of stuff. But a desert pack rat is an animal. It hunts for stuff for its nest.” Students write the main idea and supporting details on a piece of scrap paper. Students share their responses with the group.

Modeling and Guided Practice:
Students turn to the first page of the story “In the Hot Sand.” The teacher rereads the first paragraph and then calls on individuals to complete the reading. After each paragraph or page is read, the students are required to describe what the paragraph was mostly about. Students find the main idea and supporting details in each paragraph. The students respond to oral comprehension questions throughout the reading.

Independent Practice:
Students complete a practice worksheet from their reading packets. Students are required to read a passage called “The Smell of the Skunk.” Students must then underline the main idea of the passage, put a box around one detail that supports the main idea, and do a short answer question that asks “what detail helps you know that a skunk’s scary smell keeps it safe?”

Closure:
After students have completed the practice worksheet, volunteers will share their responses with the group. This worksheet is not graded, so students fix their answers. After going over the worksheet, students orally define main idea and supporting details to a partner. Students are shown a copy of the main idea and supporting details graphic organizer chart that they are required to complete on day three.

Day 3
Students are responsible for rereading the entire passage “In the Hot Sand.” At the end of the lesson, students independently complete a main ideas and supporting details graphic organizer.

Anticipatory Set:
Each student creates his or her own paragraph about a subject they choose. Students share their paragraph with a classmate. Their classmate determines the main idea and supporting details of the paragraph that is read to them. For example, a student might say, “I had an excellent day today. I ate ice cream for breakfast and I did not have to go to school. I watched my favorite television show. My mom bought me a present.” After a student says this orally, their partner determines that the main idea is “I had an excellent day.” The details to support this include, “I had ice cream for breakfast, didn’t have to go to school, watched my favorite television show, and got a present.”

Modeling and Guided Practice:
Students reread the passage “In the Hot Sand.” Students do this as a group. Student volunteers read a paragraph or page at a time. The teacher stops the students to review main idea and supporting details, but not for every paragraph or passage. After the students have completed the reading, they are given the graphic organizer and checklist. Students are given an envelope with all the main ideas and supporting details in it. There is a large version of the graphic organizer on the blackboard. The graphic organizer is not complete. Students turn to the first page of the story and reread the first paragraph. Students find the first main idea and supporting detail from their envelopes. As a group, the students determine what the first main idea and detail is, and pastes each, in its appropriate column. The teacher puts the same main idea and supporting detail on the larger graphic organizer on the board. The teacher goes over the checklist with the students so they are aware of expectations.

Independent Practice:
If the students have no further questions, they are instructed to complete the graphic organizer independently.

Closure:
Once the students have completed their graphic organizer and checklist, they turn in their work. The teacher and student look over the chart and compare it to the completed teacher exemplar. The teacher goes through the story and teacher exemplar to show the students how and why each main idea and detail should have been placed where it was.

Day 4 (Review/Assessment)
Students do a quick review of main idea and supporting details and then are given a weekly unit test on all the material covered throughout the week. The test has two multiple choice questions that ask what the main idea of the passage was, and what details support that main idea. Students answer five short answer questions in which they look back to the passage and determine the main idea and details in the passage.

Possible technology extension
Once students complete their weekly assessment and have completed their graphic organizer, they visit http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/interact-read.htm.  Students complete online interactive practice of determining main idea and supporting details of passages or paragraphs. Once students visit the homepage, they scroll down to the “Comprehension” section and click on “Main Idea: New York State.”  Here they determine the main idea of three short paragraphs about Benjamin Franklin.  After they have completed this, they will be directed to another page where they do further practice with main idea and details or review summarizing.