• Recognize the main idea in a paragraph or passage(s).

NOTE:  Main idea may include topic, subject, theme, central thought or message,  lesson or moral, thesis, and author’s purpose and/or point of view.

AHSGE Standard I - The student will demonstrate literal understanding of passages taken from a textual, functional, and recreational reading material.
 

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Alabama Lesson Plans

User-friendly "Search" feature PDF document

Summary, Note Taking, Main Idea, and Detail
Various activities from note taking

Web-Based Lesson Plan
Using the internet to summarize and predict

Teachers’ Handbook of Lesson Plans
Main idea lesson plans geared toward GED students that appropriate for middle school students

"Unforgettable Character"
Students will recognize the main idea of a story, understand unfamiliar words in context, make inferences, and integrate information from outside the passage
 

Resources:

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill link to The Peanuts Page

Students can focus on cartoon strips to practice determining main idea

Arts & Letters Daily Journal prompts

Finding the Main Idea  Interactive Activity

Suggestions for English Language Learners:

ESL Ideas (B=Beginning, I=Intermediate, T=Transitional)
(B) Students draw pictures of characters or events in the story. 
(I, T) Students complete a graphic organizer listing the topic sentence and supporting sentences of a given paragraph.
 

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