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