Chapter Four In the Community

Identifying Paragraph and Whole Reading Topics Introduction: The Topic and the Main Idea About the Topic Illustration # 1 of the Reading ‘s Main Idea Illustration # 2 of the Reading ‘s Illustration # 3 of the Reading ‘s Conclusion or Summary of the Main Idea Body Paragraphs

Identifying the Main Idea by Asking Questions How can readers recognize the main idea of reading material? 1. Ask and answer one question about the information in each paragraph . 2. Then ask and answer a general question about the main point of the whole reading. Your one- two –sentence answer to each question gives the main idea.

Example: We want to know about the introduction of the article? We ask: what is the introduction to the article about? In paragraph (B), the paragraph is talking about how people give directions in Japan. How do people give directions in Japan?

Using Punctuation to Recognize Supporting Details Punctuation marks might show the relationship between the main point of reading material and some of the supporting detail. Example 1: In Japan, people typically use landmarks in their directions: they talk about hotels, markets, bus stops, and so on. What are some examples of landmarks for directions? Hotels, markets, and bus stops. colon

Examples: A semicolon ( ;) can separate two closely related sentence parts. The second sentence part can explain or add useful information to the point of the first. Example : In the American Midwest, there are no mountains and few hills; the land is very flat. Quotation marks ( “ “ ) separate direct quotes (people exact words) from the rest of the sentence. Example: A Greek person will say, “follow me.” (What does a Greek often say instead of giving directions? “follow me.” )

Skimming For Topics and Main Ideas Topics : Sometimes there is no title for paragraphs, so the readers need to figure out the topic on their own. Main ideas: Not every piece of information contains one clear topic sentence, so the readers may have to get the main idea or point of the material without it. One way to recognize the topic and to get the main idea is by skimming. Skimming: It is fast reading for a purpose.

Learning to Paraphrase Another way to summarize is to paraphrase the main idea and the important supporting details. Paraphrase: It is a restatement of something using other words. First, be sure you understand the correct meaning of each important idea or piece of information in the reading. Think of words and phrases with similar meanings to express the same ideas.

Paraphrasing For example: The below phrases are phrases from the first paragraph of the reading “Law of communities,” with possible ways to paraphrase them. local low = legal rules of a community; town, city or rural regulations serious offenses = major illegal actions, very bad activities against the law

Then put your paraphrase together with other words in a short paragraph. Make sure your paragraph tells the main points of the original material in logical order.

Getting Meaning from Context: Finding illustrations of words Illustration words: for example / for instance / as an illustration / like / such as These illustration word can be clues to finding meanings. Sometimes illustrations of the meaning of words that name a categories are in another sentence or sentence part. Example: People in Los Angeles talk about distance in time. They’ll say such things as, “It’s about five minutes from here.” illustration word illustration of the category category

Recognizing Words with Similar Meanings and Meaning Categories To improve your vocabulary quickly, here are two good ways Words and phrases with the same or similar meanings: Example: walker pedestrian hiker passerby Items in categories: Example: cars trucks motorcycles buses The category is: motorized vehicles With both methods, the words and phrases in each grouping should be the same part of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs.

Recognizing Nouns and Verbs A vey useful vocabulary- learning method is to recognize parts of speech. Some words can be more than one part of speech: Example: Two examples of body language are motions and gestures. A person usually motions or gestures with the hand, arms, or other body parts. Plural nouns Verbs

Some words in noun and verb pairs have different forms or endings: Examples from chapter 4: Nouns: movement expression Verbs: move express Nouns: direction illustration Verbs: direct illustrate