Meaningful Main Idea Instruction

I try to teach main idea and summary towards the beginning of each school year, because I know that once my students can understand the central ideas of a text, it is much easier to delve deeply into the finer details.

Main idea isn't an easy skill to teach, however, especially once you reach fifth grade and beyond, where the Common Core State Standards require that students find two or more central ideas in a text I can't express how many times I've heard cries of, "What?! There's more than ONE big idea in the text?!"

Like with anything you are teaching, main idea will stick best when it is made meaningful and relevant. The following steps have helped immensely in my quest to bring students towards mastery of this difficult concept.

1. Introduce the vocabulary and concepts of main idea and topic. 

If you feel like your kids need an extremely straightforward introduction to main idea and topic, this Powerpoint is simple and clear (though somewhat long, so I have chosen to shorten it). However, if it seems as though your kids already have some knowledge of topic and main idea, I would just quickly review and write down the definitions of each, to ensure that your class is on the same page, and then watch a short, engaging news clip to determine its topic and main idea. I often help kids to understand what I am looking for by asking them, "If you could describe what this news report is about in one sentence (or one word/phrase for topic), what would you say?"

2. Give students practice with real, authentic texts. 

I typically plan our entire unit around a final task that will have some real-world effect. Last year, we read texts relating to modern-day slavery, then wrote speeches as if we were modern abolitionists. I sent these speeches to a state abolitionist organization, who were overjoyed at the passion in my students' writing and immediately volunteered to come speak to my "young activists." For each text that we read, students took increasing ownership of determining the main idea and details, though we used the same format for doing so with each text. In text one, I modeled for the class, and they provided ideas as to which supporting details were most appropriate for supporting each main idea. In text two, they worked in small groups, and in text three, they worked independently. Though this was a challenge, many students were surprised and impressed with how thoughtfully they could determine the main ideas and their supporting details in a text.

3. Give students additional practice through fun activities. 

I enjoy using a mixture of task cards, puzzles, and sorting mats (and also this supporting details center) to keep students practicing and engaged. I have even run a fabulous escape game, provided by The Escape Classroom. Yes, we read meaningful, authentic texts, but we also practice through writing activities, games, interaction, and movement.

Many students described our Main Idea Escape Game as one of their favorite days of the year.

4. Complete an important writing task that focuses on main idea. 

Like I stated in number one of this post, my students used their learning about main idea to write speeches as modern abolitionists. I use this graphic organizer, which will later serve as the body paragraph graphic organizer for longer pieces of writing. Because my students knew their writing would be sent off to change the world in some small way, they were more engaged and retained more from this assignment than if I had just given them a journal entry or worksheet. Through writing and the act of creation, students gain mastery over main idea.

5. Practice all year! 

Anything that is not practiced with fidelity will fade (I'm thinking about anything learned before holiday break right now). If you are looking for quick, easy ways to keep your kids practicing main idea, grab a quiz off Newsela.com, which writes articles at five different reading levels and assigns a Common Core quiz to each one (search for anchor standard 2 to practice main idea). When students are working on context clues or text structure or relationships in a text, always begin by asking students to write down the main idea of the text.

The greater your students' understanding of how to find main idea, the more manageable that complex texts will become. Even the most complicated text becomes understandable to a degree when all you have to do is describe what the text is about in one sentence.

Happy learning!

Cheers,