Teaching Main Idea: What to do when a student shrugs in response to “What’s the main idea?” (Part 3)
Posted on February 2, 2026
Are your students regurgitating facts from a text without really thinking about main ideas? When you ask about the main idea of a text (or section), do you get a shrug? What follows is a description of a conference I held with a student in which we explore what the main idea is in a …Read more
Share This Content
Context Clues in Info Texts (Part 2) – Conferring with Students
Posted on February 4, 2025
In the third entry of this series, I describe three reading conferences I had with students focused on making sense of context clues and share some tips.
Are your students regurgitating facts from a text without really thinking about main ideas? When you ask about the main idea of a text (or section), do you get a shrug? What follows is a description of a conference I held with a student in which we explore what the main idea is in a …Read more