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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

How to Summarize a Non-Fiction Passage

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
After reading a text, one way to find out how much your class comprehended is to ask your pupils to summarize. This worksheet helps class members prepare for writing a summary of a nonfiction text. They note down the topic, up to eight...
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Lesson Plan
1
1
Baruch College Writing Center

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop

For Teachers 7th - 10th Standards
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based on two...
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Lesson Plan
Ontario

Reading Informational Text

For Teachers 7th - 8th Standards
Learning to recognize the importance of the features of information text (i.e., titles, subtitles, endnotes, sidebars, etc.) is the focus of a reading activity designed for middle schoolers. Learners examine how these text features help...
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Unit Plan
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program

The Backpack Travel Journals

For Teachers 2nd - 5th Standards
Strap on those backpacks, it's time to travel through history with this literature unit based on the first four books of The Magic Tree House series. While reading through these fun stories, children create story maps, record interesting...
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Printables
Polk Bros Foundation

Comprehensive Nonfiction Reading Questions

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Analyze any nonfiction text with the set of questions on this sheet. Class members practice inferring by noting the main idea and purpose of a passage. They also analyze an opinion in the passage and write a brief summary. See the...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Summarizing and Sorting Details from an Informational Text: Identifying the Main Idea

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Scholars participate in two activities that teach them to identify the main idea and key supporting details in informational text. Partners create a visual that reflects the main idea and key supporting details in an informational text...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Short But Sweet

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
After analyzing and evaluating news summaries found in the New York Times "Week in Review" section, middle schoolers study the steps for summarizing a news article briefly and accurately. They write two news summaries: one on a newspaper...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

I Can Analyze a Story or History Completely and Carefully

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Start off analysis of a text with a worksheet that asks pupils to complete several tasks. Class members note down a couple of characters or people and their distinguishing traits, describe the most important event, summarize the text...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

A Way to Analyze Paragraphs to Figure Out the Main Idea of a Nonfiction Text

For Teachers 5th - 10th Standards
Shrink up a section by asking pupils to write down the main idea for each of seven paragraphs. There is a space provided for each main idea. When students have completed this portion, they write down what they think to be the central...
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Activity
Florida Center for Reading Research

Comprehension: Monitoring for Understanding, Simple Summary

For Teachers 2nd - 3rd Standards
Can your class sum up a text in a few sentences? Help them build this skill by starting nice and slow. For this summarizing activity, the teacher marks the main ideas with sticky notes. Learners read and reread the text, pausing at the...
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Activity
Ideas From Suzi

Guided Reading: Beyond the Basics

For Teachers 1st - 5th Standards
Elevate children's reading comprehension skills with this collection of guided reading resources. From paper dice with basic comprehension questions printed on them to a system for using sticky notes to identify key parts of a story,...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Slay the Slang! Summarizing Informational Texts

For Teachers 7th - 8th Standards
Middle schoolers get hip to the jive with a lesson about slang. They closely examine examples of slang and use context clues to infer the meaning of the terms. Groups read and summarize an article about a teacher who created a Gen Z...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

Show, Then Write What You Learn

For Teachers 1st - 8th Standards
After reading a text or covering a new topic, have class members fill out the four boxes on this page with facts. Individuals can use words or drawings to represent the facts.
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Lesson Plan
4
4
For the Teachers

Main Idea Outline

For Teachers K - 12th Standards
Find the main idea in an informational text with a versatile lesson. Three levels of differentiation help you implement the strategy in any age or class level, based on the ability and objectives of your learners.
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Printables
Student Handouts

Learning Cubes

For Students 1st - 7th
Add a game-like aspect to class discussion or writing with a die that has something other than numbers on it. You or your learners can roll the die to decide if it's time analyze, compare and contrast, describe, explain and illustrate,...
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Lesson Plan
EngageNY

Finding Relevant Information and Asking Research Questions: The Benefits of Video Games

For Teachers 7th Standards
Video games may not be so bad after all. As scholars read the text "The Many Benefits, for Kids, of Playing Video Games," they summarize the gist in their researchers' notebooks. Next, pupils draft supporting research questions based on...
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Unit Plan
Texas Center for Learning Disabilities

Second and Third Grade Explicit Phonics Intervention

For Teachers 2nd - 3rd Standards
Support all young learners on their journey to literacy with this five-lesson reading intervention unit. Following a clearly outlined format, each lesson first engages children in practicing their phonemic awareness and phonics skills...
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Organizer
3
3
Polk Bros Foundation

I Can Identify a Nonfiction Writer's Main Idea and Supporting Examples

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Use this page to quickly identify the central idea of a text and organize ideas for writing an informational or explanatory text. The worksheet is split into two parts. In the first part, pupils note down the main idea and supporting...
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Organizer
Polk Bros Foundation

I Can Comprehend a Paragraph, then a Page/Section in a Text

For Teachers 6th - 10th Standards
Help your class tackle chunks of text with a simple graphic organizer. Pupils read three paragraphs and, as they read, draw pictures in the provided boxes that demonstrate what each paragraph says. There are three boxes on the page and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Learners review their knowledge on the First Amendment. After reading an article, they identify specific church and state issues. Using the Internet, they research President Bush's proposal from a specific point of view. They summarize...
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Worksheet
K12 Reader

Biography of Abraham Lincoln

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
One skill essential to reading comprehension, is learning how to summarize a text. After reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln, readers demonstrate this ability by crafting a brief summary of Lincoln's life.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Researching the Past

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Learners research the western movement in order to learn note taking strategies with nonfiction texts. They use the Internet to search for important information about the western movement using the Cornell Notes note-taking system. They...
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Activity
Ideas From Suzi

Responding to Literature

For Teachers 2nd - 5th
Guide your class through a text with resources for before and after reading. Learners ask questions, discuss characters and plot points, point out elements of the reading that stood out, and compose brief summaries.
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Worksheet
DePaul University

Learn about Fables

For Students 2nd - 4th Standards
Expose young readers to a new genre of fiction with a short reading passage. After learning about fables, children identify the main idea and supporting details in preparation for writing a short summary. Read the text as a class,...

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