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Searching for the Main Idea

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Created by Sherry McCombs

Myken Fogt

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Objective: The students will practice looking for the main idea and extra details in a given passage.

Teacher Page

Procedure:

1. Go through the slides. Discuss the sentences and find the main ideas in each passage.

2. Have the students write a story.

3. Have the students share their stories

and try to find the main idea in their stories.

There are two easy ways of finding the Main Idea in a story.

1. Look for a word that is repeated several times in a given paragraph.

For an example, click the arrow.

Last summer, we grew watermelons. First, we planted and watered the seeds. Soon our watermelon plants came up. The plants grew big and strong. By the end of the summer we had lots of big, juicy watermelons.

Find a word in this paragraph that is repeated more than twice.

Use the pen to circle a word you see several times in the

story.

- How to grow watermelons

- Working together to grow food

from seeds

Share some of your ideas with the class.

Some examples of possible answers are:

Another way to find the main idea in a paragraph is to look at the first

sentence in the paragraph.

Click on the arrow to see an example.

We grew so many watermelons, we decided to have a big party. We held the party in the park in our neighborhood. We invited all of our neighbors. More than fifty people came! We had enough watermelons to feed everyone.

Some examples of possible answers are:

- The Watermelon Party

- The Neighborhood Block Party

Share some more ideas with the class.

LET’S REVIEW

When looking for the main idea in a story or paragraph, there are two ways to find it.

1. Look for words that are repeated several times in the reading.

2. Read the first sentence in the paragraph.

Practice Time

Pick a topic and write a paragraph.

Share your paragraph with a partner. Look for the main idea in your partners paragraph.

Share some paragraphs with the class. The End