The Reading Strategies Book - Goal #9: Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction - Determining Key Details
Oh, oh, oh! I LOVE this section. It is clear full of greatness that I use in my class when identifying main idea and key details.
"Determining importance means picking out the most important information when you read, to highlight essential ideas, to isolate supporting details, and to read for specific information. Teacher need to help readers sift and sort information, and make decisions about what information they need to remember and what information they can disregard." - Harvey and Goudvis
To be honest, the above statement is SO MUCH easier said than done.
Helping kids determine the main idea and key details that support that main idea is essential to any successful teacher/student. But how do we do this?
First, we have to understand that some students are "whole-to-part thinkers" and some are "part-to-whole thinkers". I love how Jennifer describes what each is (pg. 247) and how to distinguish between the two.
I use so many of these strategies in my class every time we are reading a nonfiction text. My two go-to favorites are:
-9.2: Reading with a Sense of "WOW"
---This has made my students better readers all around!
-9.6: Consistently Ask, "How Do I Know?"
---This has helped my students reflect and remember what they read as well as be able to identify those key details that support the main idea.
Please, please, please share your favorite strategies in the comments!
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I agree that teaching kids to determine what's important and what's not is challenging for teachers. I've had better results prefacing this lesson with identifying a purpose for reading. Then, determining importance becomes that much easier to figure out.
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