fresh ideas for teaching main idea

If it isn’t an ld comprehension type problem I think the Jamestown (gosh I think Sue knows the url) series is very good. They actually do TEACH the concept vs as you say test it, here this is our paragraph, now what’s the main idea, oh gosh you’re wrong sort of thing. The material seems appropriate for about a 5th grade level and there is an advanced series as well. Sometimes I think it is language that gets in the way, you might try rewording the question “main idea”. You say, can you give this passage a better title— then you say that’s the main idea! I think kids do that more easily.

If there is a real ld type comprehension problem you should look into Visualizing and Verbalizing (I think it might be good for those not so ld kids in comprehension and it is a whole fresh way of looking at the issue).
V/V is put out by Lindamood Bell.

—des

Just type in Jamestown Publishers and run a Yahoo or a Google search. Jamestown has lots of good materials, esp. good for older students.

I am getting ready to try “Six-Way Paragraphs.” This offers selections of several paragraphs. The M.I. question offers three choices, one too narrow, one too broad and one just right (reminds me of the Three Bears and Goldilocks). You evaluate and discuss each option, then rank the three choices.

For teaching purposes I do like multiple choice format. We can work backwards from the choices, evaluating them, I can think aloud, we can cite support from the selection. This gives us some concrete parameters within which to work.

Frankly, I believe comprehension skills are really thinking skills, applied to the written word. You cannot directly and explicitely teach people to think. You can guide their thinking and “show them models” of how more proficient thinkers think.

Another point, I have a program that I like from Teacher Created Materials, their “Time for Kids” series: Nonfiction Comprehension Test Practice. This program begins with sentence level comprehension, moves to paragraph, then selection, teaches skills, too. At the sentence level students are asked to evaluate 5 true/false statements re. the sentence. This activity is not easy. It was a surprise to me how many students have difficulty synthesizing meaning from sentences where the words and phrases influence one another and words may take a connotative, rather than a denotative, meaning. WOW!

This program only extends through 6th grade level, but I find it reasonably challenging for most of my high school literacy students.

I attended a workshop called Reading Ideas. It presented lessons that went from concrete to abstract for reg. ed. students, specials, and gifted. It includes main idea, sequence, context clues, etc. I teach 5th and 6th grade LD students and they have really enjoyed the activities. It was written by two Oklahoma educators and the book is only $20. and gives you detailed information. Their e-mail address is: [email protected]

I attended a workshop called Reading Ideas. It offered a curriculum guide for
reading comprehension. It includes main idea, getting the facts, context clues, sequence, etc. The book is only $20. It gives great ideas and lesson
plans for these areas and goes from concrete to abstract. My LD students
(5th and 6th) love it. They have alot of fun and are learning at the same time. It was written by two educators in Oklahoma. Their e-mail address is:
[email protected].

WHile a lot of comprehension is thinking, a lot of it can be directly taught by breaking it down further and going from simple to complex, concrete to abstract, oral language to written language and throwing in visuals when you can. (Can you tell the visual is toughest for me so I *try…*)
One of my favorite resources for this is Joanne Carlisle’s _Reasoning and Reading_ — and I take the exercises in there as models and make lots and lots of practice of each kind. There are lots of “how to organize verbal thoughts” exercises in there.
http://www.resourceroom.net/comprehension/booksetc.asp#links has a bunch of links to interesting stuff about reading comprehension including hi-low resources which includes Jamestown Publishing.
One activity we did with the Jamestown “single skills” booklets, which have 100 reading passages in each one that remind me of those little SRA cards from “back in the day” (which are, of course, still out there), goes like this:
STep one: identify the topic — that’s *usually* pretty easy (whales).
Step two: identify the topic sentence. This throws ‘em sometimes. There’s a section at the beginning of the booklets explaining how paragraphs are organized; we spend a fair amount of time wiht that. It includes a neat visual diagram to represent each of the the common paragraph structures. I skip any of the paragraphs that don’t have one (sometimes the paragraphs are basically lists of facts) if that’s going to throw my kiddo, and I think if I had somebody really struggling I’d even select paragraphs with one or two of the easiest kinds of organization to start with.
If it’s the topic sentence, then most of the other sentences are going to be about that topic. You can learn to go through each of the other sentences and ask “okay, is that about…?” and look back at thesentence you picked. For many of my pluggers who really wanted to know how we mysteriously gleaned the “main idea,” this was a real eye-opener. And not surprisingly, after relatively few times through the methodical way, they got better and better at anticipating which was the “big idea” sentence and which were “detail” sentences.
Step three: HIghlight the topic sentence in one color and three (or two) supporting sentences in a different color (this can be done independently).
Step two and a half or three and a half, depending on the student: Learn to get from the “topic” in your own words to the “main idea” in your own words. This, again, is best done with discussion and lots of practice. (I did this with kids with LD issues. Don’t know how much discussion and practice would be necessary for the NT population.) You gotta turn that topic — whales — into “what about them?” It has to be a *sentence.*
SOme kids will go right into a question… “It’s about how whales breathe.”
That’s nice and it’ll work through fourth grade (I tell my middle schoolers) — but we’re ready for the next step. Tell me something about how whales breathe. You might just say the topic sentence in your own words - but if you’re not sure of the topic sentence, or you’ve moved to a chapter of a book, or an essay or paper, this will also work. Here again, I have to make sure that there *is* a generality in the paragraph/passage we’re using — not “whales have an interesting way of breathing.” However, there’s often a generality in there — such as “there are many places that squirrels hide their nuts.” ( Is my wildlife degree showing?) You get to use the same strategy that you did for finding the topic sentence — look at each sentence to see if it is “about” your main idea. Most of them should be.
As far as making it “engaging” — the answer is:
a. the reading has to be at their independent level. If they can’t understand the words, they can’t understand the passage (whether its decoding or vocabulary).
b. It helps a whole lot if the topics are moderately interesting (and the Jamestown stuff is).
c. Sometimes school just isn’t all that thrilling and entertaining… HOWEVER… in my experience, my students found that having clearly established, easily attainable short term goals (read this passage and…) and getting good grades because it really was attainable for them (this takes time to learn how to do — when in doubt, get stuff that’s too easy but isn’t babyish… but be prepareed to go *WAY* easy andif that’s too hard TEACH THEM TO DECODE …)

Oh, I’d get REasoning and Reading from the folks at http://www.rlac.com — they have lots of other good stuff too.

(Sue at work, not logged in — oh, no, I’ll NEVER catch up to Des in the post race!!!)n

You shoulda posted a couple more times. :-P

helpful hints on posting from,

—des