1. Reading Strategy: Determine Important ideas

3. When determining Important ideas in a text, you pull out the “must Know” information, from the less important details.

4. To determine the important ideas in a text, you should:

5. Start by: identifying your purpose or reason for reading.

6. As you read, Use the titles and headings for help in determining what’s important.

7. Use Boldface Terms to recognize important concepts.

8. Think about what the author wants you to learn or remember.

9. Pay attention to: ** Headings ** Titles ** Italics ** Captions ** Framed Text ** Illustrations ** Fonts ** Bold faced print ** First and last line of paragraph

10. Use your general knowledge about the world and how it works, as well as your specific knowledge of the topic, to guide you toward what is important in the text.

11. Writers use certain text clues to alert readers to important ideas. The following text clues are almost always followed by important information. They warn readers to stop and pay attention!!!! ** in fact ** on the other hand ** in conclusion ** for example ** most important ** such as ** therefore** but

12. Diagrams, maps, word bubbles, tables, graphs, and charts graphically inform non-fiction readers of important information.

13. Picking out the important information in informational text is an important reading strategy.

14. Lets see if the following story will help you understand why determining important ideas is such a powerful reading strategy.

15. imagine you are marooned alone on a desert island.

16. While searching for food on this island, you discover a decrepit old pirate ship.

17. You climb aboard the ship. Amidst the wreckage you find the skeletons of many dead pirates. YUCK!!!

18. And.....lots and lots of treasures, plundered by the pirates during their raids on law abiding seafaring vessels.

19. Since all the pirates are dead, you decide the treasure is yours.

20. Problem is, you have just finished building a small raft which you will use to escape the desert island. You plan to attempt your escape with the next day’s high tide.

21. “So what is the problem?”, you say.

22. The raft is small. that’s the problem!! It is Just big enough for one person and limited supplies of food and fresh water.

23. When you built the raft, you did not anticipate coming upon a pirate ship full of treasure.

24. If the new found treasure will now be added to the raft, it will need to fit in a few hollow coconut containers.

25. the treasure will therefore need to be small. It will also need to weigh very little or the raft may sink.

26. You stand, looking at a pirate ship full of treasure, and realize you cannot take it all. Rats!!!!

27. You will have to decide what will go with you on the raft and what will remain with the skeletons. HOw will you determine the most important treasure to take?

28. first you must set a purpose in deciding “importance”.

29. Importance, given our limited raft size, is the treasure that meets the following criteria. has very high monetary value weighs very little fits into a small space

30. Fulfilling the three criteria of value, size and weight, is the purpose you will use in choosing which treasure to take and which to leave.

31. Staying focussed on your purpose will guarantee you will find the most important pieces that fit your needs, and not get side tracked by fancy treasures that may look good but won’t work given the limitations of your raft.

32. As you keep your purpose in mind, remember to go through all the treasure before making your final decision as to what you will leave and what you will keep.

33. No skipping over weird looking and oddly shaped treasure, or you may be sorry!!! Just because some treasure looks different from the rest, doesn’t mean it is less important or less valuable.

34. After you have checked out all the treasure, even the odd looking bits, then you are ready to leave the stuff behind that doesn’t fit your purpose and keep only the most important.

35. You put the most Important treasure into your hollowed out coconuts (since there are no bags or boxes on deserted desert islands) and return to your raft.

36. There you stow your most important treasure, along with your fresh water and food, onto your raft in preparation for tomorrows departure at high tide.

37. We wish you luck on the perilous journey you are about to undertake.

38. In our story, you were faced with a ship full of treasure. you had to decide which was most valuable. which was most important to take.

39. It’s the same with reading informational text.

40. When you read, you are faced with a lot of text. How do you decide what is most important?

41. Think about our story and use the same strategies our castaway used when trying to decide which treasure to take and which to leave.

42. Set a Purpose -- The purpose was to choose treasures that were valuable, light in weight, and small so they could be carried on the raft. Treasures Reading Set a Purpose for your reading. Why are you reading this text? What is the intended learning? What knowledge do you hope to gain?

43. Treasures Reading Look at all the treasure before making final choices. Read the entire text. Pay attention to text features.

44. Treasures Reading Use your prior knowledge of the value of various pieces of treasure to help you make your decisions. Use your prior knowledge of the subject to help you decide what is important. What is the “must know” information.

45. Next time you are reading informational text, use all these “treasure” strategies to determine the important ideas and watch how your comprehension and understanding improves!!!

46. bibliography Harvey, S., & Goodvis, A. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. Stenhouse Publishing. 2000. Honig, B., Diamond, L., and Gutlohn, L. Teaching Reading Sourcebook for Kindergarten through Eighth Grade. Novato, CA. Arena Press. 2000.