Finding the Central Idea

Topic Sentence

A sentence, most often appearing at the beginning of a paragraph, that announces the paragraph's central idea.

Summarizing

After reading a piece, you summarize by shortening the text into just the most important points. Remember the 5W's to develop your summary (who, what, when, where, & why).

Details

Examples, facts, statistics, quotes, and explanations that an author includes in their writing.

Central Idea

Similar to the main idea, this is the most important point the author makes of an ENTIRE text.

Support

The information that helps to explain the central idea and topic.

Topic

The subject that the passage/text focuses on

Supporting Details

These are facts, information, or examples that help give the reader a full understanding of the central idea. They will clarify, explain, and describe the main idea so the reader understands it fully.

Main Idea

What the passage/paragraph is mostly about

Informational text

a nonfiction text, written to share factual information

Inference

an educated guess drawn from evidence or reasoning and prior knowledge.

Explicit

directly stated

Implicit

not directly stated