Teaching Main Idea in Reading ComprehensionTeaching main idea? Get main idea worksheets and activities, a sure-fire video for teaching reading comprehension main idea and printable graphic organizers. Teaching how to find the main idea in reading comprehension sounds so simple, but it is sometimes the most difficult skill for students. The main idea is who or what the story is all about. This is the most important information. Identifying main idea is one of the core teaching reading strategies for comprehension. If a student cannot identify the main idea of a selection, they become lost in a sea of details. This is when we say, "this child cannot see the forest because of all the trees." When we are teaching children reading, it is not only about fluency but about deep comprehension. One of the most difficult aspects of teaching main idea is to recognize if it is being explicitly stated or inferred. Inferencing is a critical component to reading comprehension and it is a higher-order thinking skill. This requires many modeling opportunities. Students require a procedure and strategies to use. Main Idea ActivitiesTeaching main idea follows a specific sequence: students must first be able to identify the key words or topic of a sentence, then a paragraph, and finally a longer selection. A suggested sequence of lessons is as follows:ERIC Clearing House; Dishner, Ernest K 1 & 2. Teachers need to start with the basics: Identify key words of a sentence. This is very literal comprehension. Use a small, sample sentence to identify key words. The small dog was frightened by the big, bad wolf. In this example, the question, "What is the sentence about?" is that it is about a small dog. What about that small dog? It is frightened by the wolf. While this seems very simple, many students who cannot grasp the concept of a main idea need this step and cannot move on without it. Mastery at the sentence level is essential. Once mastery at the sentence level is shown, move on to identifying key words of a paragraph. Do not put the words into a sentence yet. Just highlight important words and discuss what they mean within the paragraph. 3 & 4. In the primary grades, these are the two points students are generally expected to master. The main idea, or topic, is still explicitly stated. Teach the students to ask, "What does the author say?" and, "Why does he say it?" Be sure your students are familiar with paragraph structure before teaching the procedures to identify the main idea. Either read a paragraph out-loud or direct them to read it carefully. You will use this four step strategy: The beauty of this is that it is teaching the students to monitor their own comprehension. You are also teaching that the main idea can be found anywhere within a paragraph, not just at the beginning. Read about scaffolded steps for teaching writing 5, 6, & 7. This is actually quite similar to steps 3 & 4, except that now the students will need to match their "own words" main idea with an implied one from the text - inferencing. Continue using the same four steps but at higher levels of thinking. The Florida Center for Reading Research has many activities for teaching main idea. FCRR activity for teaching main idea Main Idea WorksheetsIf you are looking for some main idea activities that are ready to use right now in your classroom, download a free copy of my Main Idea Activities booklet below. Just click on the apple! These 14 worksheets are main idea lesson plans in an easy to use format. Students will progress through locating the main idea sentences that go with each detail to writing the main idea as a question for short paragraphs. Then they will locate the main idea of a paragraph structure through inferencing, and finally writing a paragraph using given details while writing their own main idea, or topic, sentence.  Return to Top: Teaching Main Idea
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