Teaching Main Idea

No matter what grade level you teach in elementary, teaching main idea and supporting details can make any teacher pull out their hair! It’s a complicated skill that we try to build on year after year. It’s not easy to teach and it’s not an easy concept for the kids to grasp.

Every curriculum teaches main idea in a slightly different way, which is why I always suggest to use the Teacher’s Manual as more of a guide, than a script. We need to be consistently teaching using a research-based method. Lessons are not always outlined this way in the Teacher’s Manual.

So, if you want to teach main idea in a way that IS proven effective, make sure to include the following suggestions in your lesson plan.

Teach main idea following a gradual release model

Using explicit instruction, combined with a gradual release of responsibility lesson plan model, is highly effective at teaching main idea. It means that you, as the teacher, will start off explicitly modeling through thinking aloud, how to find the main idea. Start with finding the main idea in one paragraph and then build up to multiple paragraphs or a whole section of text.

Model 2-3 examples. Select a text, such as the student’s science or social studies book to use for the whole lesson. Make sure to mark the pages and passages ahead of time!

Next, you will be guiding students through highly structured/supported practice and gradually releasing them to practice on their own once you’re sure they’ve got it. They need to prove that they can identify the main idea and the supporting details. Guiding questions and specific instructions to help you teach this difficult concept can be found in this resource.

After you’ve checked for understanding, you will move students into independent practice. You can quickly and easily pull a small group to reteach during this time! Use your check for understanding to differentiate the level of support provided during the practice time.

Last, but DEFINITELY not least, don’t forget to close your lesson! This is such an important step and often gets overlooked. There are so many fun and engaging ways to close a lesson, but be sure you close it in a way that gives you feedback on how well your students met the objective.

Use a graphic organizer for main idea

Now that you know the basic instructional steps you will take for teaching main idea, make sure to use appropriate teaching strategies within those steps. Using a graphic organizer for main idea is often very helpful. It allows students to visualize the main idea and how the details actually support it.

Of course, not all graphic organizers are created equal so make sure you choose a graphic organizer that will help students find and support the main idea. It should clearly show how the main idea is the biggest or most important idea and how the details support this idea by telling more about it.

What is the main idea of a passage

Additionally, students need to be taught to find the main idea of a passage of varying lengths. Once students become more proficient at small paragraphs, you will gradually increase the complexity and they will have to identify what is the main idea of a passage.

You can use passages that have multiple choice answers to help prepare them for a test or simply pull passages from non-fiction sources and have them use a graphic organizer to show their response.

When finding what is the main idea of a passage, seek to use text that is conducive to an overarching main idea with clear details that support it. Give students their own copy of the passage and show them how to cross out irrelevant details and circle details that support the main idea.

Teaching main idea lesson plans

Ok, so you’ve gotten to this point and are probably thinking something along the lines of, “This all makes sense and sounds kind of like what I’ve been doing, but my kids still aren’t getting it!”.

Firstly (is that a word? let’s go with it), I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- Teaching main idea is haaardddd! So if you are on the struggle bus just know that the bus is full of fellow teachers, too!

Secondly, teaching main idea is not a one and done lesson. Duh, right? But sometimes our curriculum program treats it like it and ungraciously includes ONE lesson only. Not helpful.

But you know what would be helpful? Having a resource that you could use multiple times a year to teach main idea using different texts. That’s why I created Main Idea and Supporting Details with Graphic Organizers and Passages (try to say that 5 times fast!).

You can use it as a mini-unit and with any text! It’s easy to repeat throughout the year. The lesson is already structured following the steps identified above. All you need to do is supply the text (I suggest using social studies or science textbooks).

It includes a complete lesson plan, graphic organizers, scripted notes and suggestions for the teacher, passages and exit tickets. The passages and exit tickets are great for formative assessment or extra practice. Of course, you will only use those once. The actual lesson and other items can be used an infinite amount of times by just selecting a different text!

The entire resource comes in 3 forms: Google Slides, PDF, and PowerPoint. You know, because at this point, you never know how/when/where you’ll be teaching!

Take it from me…

Teaching main idea used to be one of my least favorite things to teach. It was right up there with day 1 of teaching long division to 3rd graders (If you know, you know). BUT, now that I follow this teaching framework as I teach main idea, I can honestly say, I love it.

I want you to love it too! Hit reply and let me know your struggles with teaching main idea. Let’s crowd-source this!