Main Topic & Key Details
Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text, determine the focus of specific paragraphs, and explain how key details support the main idea
Teaching approaches
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1 approach
A multi-paragraph informational or non-fiction text has one main topic across the whole text. Each paragraph has a narrower focus. Specific facts and details support the main idea, and connections show how events, ideas, or steps relate through cause and effect, sequence, or comparison.
Spend 15 minutes reading the supplied three-paragraph city-trees text. State the whole text’s main topic, name the focus of each paragraph, explain how details support the main idea, and describe one connection.
Learning resources
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This concept
Check understanding
- Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text and state the focus of individual paragraphs
- Describe how specific details and facts in the text support the main idea
- Explain how events, ideas, or steps in a text are connected (e.g. cause-effect, sequence, comparison)
“When your child reads a multi-page article — like a school text about a historical event — can they tell you the main idea and then explain what each section was specifically about?”
Curriculum record
- Type
- Procedural
- Subject
- English
- Domain
- Reading Comprehension
- Age range
- Ages 6–10
Standards