Main Idea Reading Passages

What might be the main idea of a book titled "Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables?"

• Tomatoes are good for you.
• Strawberries have seeds on the outside.
• It's important to eat vegetables and fruit.
• Spinach is good for your bones.

Which chapter would have information about lions, tigers, and snow leopards?

• "Lion, King of the Jungle"
• "How Tigers get their Stripes"
• "Save the Snow Leopards"
• "Big Cats of the World"

A SUPPORTING detail explains the main idea in a paragraph. What does SUPPORT mean?

• to search and find
• to hold up and help
• to end
• to write

What is a main idea?

• the central point of a piece of writing
• the information that supports the topic sentence
• the most interesting detail in a book
• the punctuation used in a paragraph

If you read an essay about how important recycling is to our environment, what is the topic?

• littering
• plastic
• recycling
• paper

If you read an essay about how important recycling is to our environment, what is the main idea?

• People shouldn't make so much plastic.
• People should pick up trash.
• People should eat healthy food.
• Recycling is important to protect the environment.

If you wanted to find the main idea of an article, where would you look?

• In the first sentence
• In the first sentence of the second paragraph
• In the last sentence of the first paragraph
• There is no one place where the main idea is always found

If you can't figure out the main idea of a passage, what should you do?

• Try to recall every specific detail from the passage
• Ask yourself general questions about the passage
• Read the passage over and over until you have it memorized
• Read the passage once and don't look at it again.

What inference can you make about main ideas in writing?

• They're always based on fact and never opinion.
• To be effective, they should be supported by facts
• In many essays, they have nothing to do with the topic
• Most pieces of writing lack main ideas

An octopus isn't fast enough to swim after a fish. The octopus must wait for a fish to swim by.  When the fish comes within reach, the octopus whips out his long arm to grasp it.  Then the octopus has a tasty meal.  What is the main idea?

• How much fish an octopus eats
• Why the octopus likes to eat
• How an octopus gets its food
• why an octopus has 8 legs