Main Idea and Supporting Details Worksheets
Do you wonder how to teach main idea and supporting details to your elementary students? Are they struggling with identifying the main idea and supporting details?
This is a tricky concept to teach and requires a variety of strategies and reviewing for students to effectively identify main ideas in a text and locate supporting detail for evidence.
This resource is ideal for whole class writing lessons, writing centers and literacy centers!
The following are 7 strategies to help with teaching key ideas and details:
1. Anchor Charts: No matter what I’m teaching, I always start with an Anchor Chart brainstorm that is visual and permanent environmental print that my students can rely upon.
Main Idea and Supporting Details Worksheets
2. Reading Passages and Think Alouds:
How powerful is this strategy? When a teacher reads a passage and ‘thinks aloud’ it gives students the opportunity to see and hear how an effective reader thinks. For example:
- ‘I wonder what the main idea of this text or paragraph is about?’
- ‘What are the key words in this sentence/text/paragraph’
- ‘I notice that the author has uses topic-specific vocabulary, eg – nocturnal, habitat’
3. Talk about the importance of reading titles, sub-titles and captions:
Tell your students that these are important because they give the reader a clue about the main idea of the text.
4. Task Cards:
Task Cards with pictures and texts are a great introduction to identifying the main idea and supporting details, particularly when working with a partner or small group. Students have the opportunity to ‘bounce off’ ideas and learn in a
peer-supported environment.
5. Reading Passages where students are encouraged to be visual learners and highlight the key parts of a text. Remind students that highlighting draws the reader’s attention to the main parts of the text.
6. Main Ideas and Supporting Details Graphic Organizers: Provide your students with a range of texts that they can read independently. Using a graphic organizer, students write down the main idea and then justify their answer by
providing one or two supporting details as evidence.
Main Idea and Supporting Details Worksheets
7. Celebrate students’ hard work in identifying main ideas and supporting details by encouraging them to share their work in a peer supported environment. This validates students’ hard work and sends a message that their writing and
ideas are valued!
Main Idea and Supporting Details Worksheets
Click here if you’re looking for activities to teach main idea and supporting details!
Read this blog to find out about running easy literacy centers!
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