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19+ Main Idea Anchor Chart Created By Teachers

It’s no coincidence that some institutions talk about their students ‘reading’ for a degree. Think about it: in so many ways, reading is the key to formal education. It’s no use reading without comprehending, though. The key to knowing what is going on in a text is to find the main idea.

From this resource, you will learn what to look for in a good anchor chart. I have also curated some resources you can use in the classroom.

Table of Contents

Key elements of a good main idea anchor chart, main idea anchor chart resources from teachsimple, main idea anchor charts examples, from other teachers, final thoughts about main idea anchor charts, different ways of presenting the main idea in anchor charts, above all, a good anchor chart must be logical.

Whatever approach is adopted for the chart, the students must be able to follow the logic from main idea to reasoning.

A good main idea anchor chart will grab the students’ attention

This can be in the form of an innovative approach, or it can simply be the use of font, color and the way it is set out.

The students must be directed to the concept of the ‘main idea’

For older grades, there can simply be a subheading that says ‘Main Idea’. They will understand what to look out for, though you may need to remind them of how to go about finding the main idea.

For younger grades, look out for an anchor chart that asks key questions about the text, such as:

The students must express

The students must be guided to express their reasons for choosing the main idea in their own words. This can be achieved by asking focused questions, such as:

Why did you say that? Can you find the supporting/secondary ideas? What reasons can you give for choosing that main idea? Why is the main idea not…?

The students must be presented with a structure to present their ideas. A good anchor chart may either provide a blank template for students to fill in, or it will provide a clear structure from which they can create their own anchor charts.

informative or interactive

An anchor chart for the main idea may be informative or interactive. The advantage of an informative chart is that it clearly states what the students must look for.

The advantage of an interactive chart is that it allows the students to get involved in the process of finding and writing about the main idea.

Any good anchor chart about the main idea will allow you to adapt it. This can mean making changes to the chart, or using it in a different way.

It can also mean using the chart differently depending on the abilities or grades of the students.

• Main Idea Anchor Chart By First In Line

This resource consists of a set of 4 charts. The complete first one serves as a model for the other, blank ones to be filled in by the students.

•   Day 13: Main Idea By First In Line

What is really great about this resource is the interactive activities. It consists of a set of comprehension and reading activities .

• Main Idea Graphic Organizers By DrDrew

This resource can be adapted for any grade, which makes it useful. It consists of a set of 5 graphic organizers. They are used for outlining the main idea and details of any text.

• Main Idea And Details Activities: Molly Pitcher Bio By Rap Opera For Kids!

I love the way this resource uses song lyrics as reading passages to present a different way of looking for the main idea. It is based on the idea that kids enjoy songs. They find the main idea and supporting ideas in the song lyrics.

• Reading Comprehension: Main Idea Chapter Slice By Classroom Complete Press

This resource teaches reading skills. The emphasis on finding the main idea, because it’s an essential part of the reading process.

• Main Idea Graphic Organizer By Have Fun Teaching

I love the way this resource takes the literal idea of a table and turns it into a blank graphic where the students can fill in points about the main idea.

• Good Readers Can Identify ‘MAIN IDEA’ By Mrs. McGarity

This resource clearly sets out the 5 main points to look for when the students are trying to identify the main idea. I love the way it has been produced, as if a student wrote it.

• Main Idea: Before, During And After Reading From Classroom Freebies Too

This can be used as a great way to teach a reading comprehension strategy . It gives steps for 3 stages of the reading process.

• Teaching Main Idea of Nonfiction Text From Teaching With Jennifer Findley

This resource is specifically aimed at teaching students a difficult reading skill: to identify the main idea in a non-fiction text. Three different strategies are presented.

• Bite Into A Tasty Book By Amy Lemons

What kid doesn’t go for food? So, why not present useful teaching strategies as a hamburger? This is an innovative idea that grabs one’s attention.

• I Can Explain How Key Details Support The MAIN IDEA From Weebly

This resource is an organized page for the students to fill in. It leaves space for the main idea, how it can be expanded and the reasons for choosing it as the main idea.

• How To Find Main Idea From Appletastic Learning

This resource works on a different idea, because it’s about reading an image and finding the main idea from the captions and heading. It is a great process to teach students about pre-reading and using hints from the text to find the main idea.

• Main Idea Workstation From Stuckey In Second

This resource consists of passages and a guide to find the main idea. What I find useful is that the students are directed to find the details that support the main idea. This guides them to be able to separate the main idea from the content.

• Main Idea And Details By Upper Elementary Snapshots

Students can use this ice cream cone anchor chart to determine the main idea along with three important supporting details. Fill out a graphic organizer with the student. Simply give each each of them sticky notes to write on.

• Main Idea And Details (What Are They?) From Mrs. Warner’s Learning

This resource is a graphic representation of how to go about finding the main idea. Students are guided through the steps to understand what the passage is about and then to work to identifying the main idea.

• Identifying The Main Idea Of The Story By Literacy Ideas

This is a comprehensive resource for helping students identify and decode the main idea of a text. It also gives a good definition of the term.

• Guided Reading From Literacy Ideas

This resource consists of literally hundreds of texts that can be used for all reading activities. You can choose and adapt them for different ability levels.

• Identifying The Main Idea From Elementary Nest

This resource consists of a set of blank pages that are ready to be filled in with points about main ideas. It is a great way to give structure and guidance, but allowing the students to pick out the relevant points from the text.

• Identifying The Main Idea And Supporting Detail From Elementary Nest

This engaging anchor chart is a great way for students to focus on the main idea and how to extract or formulate subtopics.

Main idea anchor charts are an invaluable resource in the reading process. They are also the first step in expressing comprehension of a text. Keep your anchor charts focused on the main idea and your students will become familiar and more confident about finding the main idea in a text and to be able to explain their choices.

The concept of main idea can be presented in different ways in the form of anchor charts.

Begin with the reading process

The main idea of most texts can be found in the title or heading. This is what we look at in the first stage of the reading process: Pre-reading.

You can make an anchor chart to do this by:

• Use a short text on the chart itself.
• Make sure the text has a clear heading.
• Use arrows, colors or different fonts to take the students through the process.

For example:

The heading tells us… This means the story is about this subject. When we read, we must look out for what the story tells us about …

You can also leave the points open-ended and space for the students to fill in the blanks. This will make the anchor chart interactive.

Provide an empty template

This approach works particularly well for older grades, but you can adapt it for younger grades.

You can either find or create your own template. Let’s work with the idea of creating your own template.

It must have a very clear structure that shows that the main idea is most important. This should be presented as a bigger block, or at the top of the template.

Provide space for the students to fill in the reasons for choosing the main idea. This helps them find secondary points, which lead to the main point.

Demonstrate how to work through a process to get to the main point

Create a building on your anchor chart.

(For this approach, I suggest combining an informative and an interactive chart.)

At the top of the chart, begin by identifying the keywords in the passage.

The next level is the sub-points that can be worked out from the keywords.

Finally, the foundation of the article is the main idea.

This is a chart to fill in that is based on a passage about with jellyfish. The students are guided to find the main idea and to write down details in boxes.

by Jane Ballot Jane Ballot has been in education for 37 years, teaching at all levels of school and at university, with extensive experience in developing educational resources.

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Main Idea Anchor Chart (FREE worksheet included!)

8 comments:

Love the anchor chart, topic, and lesson Deb! Thanks for sharing. :)

We were right in the middle of main idea when we ended up on strike for a month! This will be perfect for getting back into the swing of things on Monday. Thank you!!!

What grade is this suited for?

Hi Amber! I created this anchor chart with third graders in mind, but I think it could work for grades 2-5. Thanks for visiting!

I love your blog! Thanks for sharing!

Wow! This is a very easy way to teach main idea and supporting details! Perfect. Thank you for sharing :-)

Thank you so much! Using this lesson this week.

Like it,very helpful!

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15 Anchor Charts to Teach Main Idea

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Introduction:

Main idea is an essential component of reading comprehension, and mastering this skill helps students better understand and retain information they read. Using anchor charts can be an effective teaching tool to aid in the understanding of main ideas and supporting details. In this article, we’ll explore 15 anchor charts designed to teach students the concept of main idea effectively.

1. Main Idea Umbrella:

This anchor chart represents main ideas as an umbrella sheltering key details as raindrops, emphasizing that details support the main idea.

2. Main Idea Table:

Presenting main ideas as tabletops with legs for supporting details, this chart stresses the need for strong details to uphold the central point.

3. Main Idea Tree:

A tree with branches for each detail helps students visualize how individual pieces of information come together to form a cohesive main idea.

4. Main Idea House:

Showcasing a house built on strong foundations of supporting details, this metaphor encourages students to find reliable evidence for their statements.

5. Main Idea Ice Cream Cone:

Using a delicious ice cream analogy, this chart demonstrates how chunks of detail fill in the cone (main idea) to create a pleasing concept.

6. Pizza Slice Main Idea:

Divided into sections like pizza slices, this chart shows that each detail adds flavor and depth to the main idea, which forms the crust base.

7. Question-based Main Idea Chart:

Using guiding questions such as “What is the topic?”, “What is significant about it?”, and “Why should we care?”, students can easily identify the main idea.

8. Hamburger Model Main Idea:

Modeling text structure like a hamburger – with introduction and conclusion buns and a meaty middle – helps students grasp the importance of well-structured ideas.

9. Paragraph-style Main Idea Chart:

A paragraph format anchor chart encourages students to write concise summaries by narrowing down topics, subtopics, and key details.

10. Main Idea Detective:

Implementing a detective theme, this chart inspires students to search for clues to uncover and support main ideas.

11. Main Idea Time Machine:

Organizing information chronologically underlines the cause-and-effect relationships that strengthen the main idea.

12. Movie Poster Main Idea:

Similar to a movie poster’s catchy tagline, this chart prompts students to create compelling summaries of texts to capture the essence of their main idea.

13. Main Idea Ladder:

Climbing up the rungs of detail collection, this ladder metaphor highlights the importance of building strong foundations before identifying the main idea.

14. Flower Pot Main Idea:

Using a flowering plant as an analogy, this chart shows how nurturing individual details helps a strong main idea grow and flourish.

15. Main Idea Equation:

By clarifying that the main idea equals topic plus detail, this anchor chart simplifies an abstract concept into a simple calculation for students.

Conclusion:

Anchor charts offer creative ways to illustrate crucial reading concepts like main ideas to students in visual and memorable forms. By employing a variety of metaphors and styles, these 15 anchor charts offer engaging strategies for teaching how to identify, understand, and remember main ideas in a text.

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15 Anchor Charts to Teach Main Idea

Introduction:

Main idea is an essential component of reading comprehension, and mastering this skill helps students better understand and retain information they read. Using anchor charts can be an effective teaching tool to aid in the understanding of main ideas and supporting details. In this article, we’ll explore 15 anchor charts designed to teach students the concept of main idea effectively.

1. Main Idea Umbrella:

This anchor chart represents main ideas as an umbrella sheltering key details as raindrops, emphasizing that details support the main idea.

2. Main Idea Table:

Presenting main ideas as tabletops with legs for supporting details, this chart stresses the need for strong details to uphold the central point.

3. Main Idea Tree:

A tree with branches for each detail helps students visualize how individual pieces of information come together to form a cohesive main idea.

4. Main Idea House:

Showcasing a house built on strong foundations of supporting details, this metaphor encourages students to find reliable evidence for their statements.

5. Main Idea Ice Cream Cone:

Using a delicious ice cream analogy, this chart demonstrates how chunks of detail fill in the cone (main idea) to create a pleasing concept.

6. Pizza Slice Main Idea:

Divided into sections like pizza slices, this chart shows that each detail adds flavor and depth to the main idea, which forms the crust base.

7. Question-based Main Idea Chart:

Using guiding questions such as “What is the topic?”, “What is significant about it?”, and “Why should we care?”, students can easily identify the main idea.

8. Hamburger Model Main Idea:

Modeling text structure like a hamburger – with introduction and conclusion buns and a meaty middle – helps students grasp the importance of well-structured ideas.

9. Paragraph-style Main Idea Chart:

A paragraph format anchor chart encourages students to write concise summaries by narrowing down topics, subtopics, and key details.

10. Main Idea Detective:

Implementing a detective theme, this chart inspires students to search for clues to uncover and support main ideas.

11. Main Idea Time Machine:

Organizing information chronologically underlines the cause-and-effect relationships that strengthen the main idea.

12. Movie Poster Main Idea:

Similar to a movie poster’s catchy tagline, this chart prompts students to create compelling summaries of texts to capture the essence of their main idea.

13. Main Idea Ladder:

Climbing up the rungs of detail collection, this ladder metaphor highlights the importance of building strong foundations before identifying the main idea.

14. Flower Pot Main Idea:

Using a flowering plant as an analogy, this chart shows how nurturing individual details helps a strong main idea grow and flourish.

15. Main Idea Equation:

By clarifying that the main idea equals topic plus detail, this anchor chart simplifies an abstract concept into a simple calculation for students.

Conclusion:

Anchor charts offer creative ways to illustrate crucial reading concepts like main ideas to students in visual and memorable forms. By employing a variety of metaphors and styles, these 15 anchor charts offer engaging strategies for teaching how to identify, understand, and remember main ideas in a text.

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Teaching main idea can be tough.  Some students get it right away and others, well the just don’t.  Sometimes students get so caught up in the details that they just can’t see the forrest from the trees.  However, being able to not only find but communicate the main idea is an important skill our students need.

When I need to change things up a bit I jump over to my favorite visual search engine – Pinterest. I did a search on Pinterest, and found some great main idea anchor charts.  I found a chart similar to this one, decided on a few changes, and then created it.

This new anchor chart made teaching main idea a little easier.  I like that the chart gives students specific places to look for the main idea, rather than just asking what the story is mostly about.  I also like that it provides them with specific questions to ask themselves, thus teaching them to think like a reader.  Knowing specific strategies such as these can truly help students become better readers.

After creating the anchor chart I displayed it in my classroom.  As we began reviewing the concept of main idea we went through the chart as a class.  We talked about each of the 5 things listed and I modeled what it might look and sound like if I was doing it.  The students really loved practicing this skill together and I was very proud of how they began digging a little deeper.

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Helpful classroom resources, main idea and details anchor chart.

Are you looking for a fun and engaging way to teach your students strategies for finding the main idea and details in a text? Look no further. In this post, we present an awesome main idea and details anchor chart, as well as reading comprehension passages that will make your lesson a hit!

As a teacher, you know that teaching students strategies to find the main idea is a crucial for reading comprehension. It requires them to not only identify the topic but also understand the author’s message about the topic. Some students may find it easy, while others may struggle. But don’t worry, we have some great tips to help you out! Get ready for an adventure into the wonderful world of reading!

HOW DO I TEACH MAIN IDEA STRATEGIES TO ELEMENTARY STUDENTS?

Teaching students to find the main idea and details requires them to identify the topic, and then what the author’s message is about the topic.  Sometimes the main idea is right there for students in the topic sentence, and other times it needs to be inferred, or pieced together, from multiple sentences.  

Asking the following questions is a great way to start:

• Give a one sentence summary of what the text is about.  
• What is this text mostly about?
• What is the author’s message about the topic?
• What is another title that could be given to this text/section?

A MAIN IDEA AND DETAILS ANCHOR CHART

Graphic organizers are perfect for supporting visual learners and breaking down challenging skills into more manageable pieces for students. You can give them to students as an personal anchor chart for their notebook or post them for on your classroom walls. Start by introducing main idea and supporting details using an anchor chart with a fun visual, like a heart, legs supporting a table, branches on a tree, or an umbrella with raindrops. These visuals drive home the point that the main idea needs to be supported by key details.

As your students start to grasp this main idea strategy, gradually move on to reading passages and then longer books with multiple paragraphs and sections. Keep in mind that longer texts usually have multiple main ideas, so it’s crucial to teach students how to identify them in smaller passages first.

LESSON IDEAS

Finding the main idea and supporting details has never been easier! Using our main idea graphic organizer to  color code  nonfiction passages gives students multiple opportunities to  practice   recognizing text organization.  When students can see the organization of a written paragraph, they can more easily identify the main idea. Each reading passage also comes with comprehension passages, and   answer keys are included . I’ve created several resources that allow my students to practice finding the main idea and details. Click on the pictures below to check them out!

WHAT TEACHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT OUR MAIN IDEA KEY DETAIL ANCHOR CHART:

You might also like “ 5 Quick Tips – Getting Students to Follow Directions. ”

Happy Teaching!

I hope you find these suggestions helpful!  Click here to follow  Peas in a Pod  on Tpt for more classroom tips & freebies .

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How to teach main ideas in upper grades.

If you are looking for tips on teaching main idea in upper grades, you’re in the right place! This blog post is for all of you 4th and 5th grade teachers who are getting ready to teach main idea in informational text. For my blog post on main idea in primary grades, click here .

Teaching main idea in upper grades will have similar key skills. The primary difference in the 4th and 5th-grade main idea standards is that in 4th grade, students are looking for one main idea of an entire text. In 5th grade, students are looking for multiple main ideas.

Standards for Main Idea:

• 4th Grade RI: Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.
• 5th Grade RI: Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.

Introduce Main Idea in Upper Grades:

Main idea is a skill that can give students some trouble. You may introduce the skill in seclusion and work toward mastery, but I also suggest revisiting the skill throughout the year.

When introducing main idea, an anchor chart is a good place to start. Students need to understand the purpose and parameters of main idea. An anchor chart needs to have a clear description of the topic or skill. So, you can create (or print/display) an anchor chart and revisit it throughout your unit. The anchor charts below can be printed or displayed digitally. Then, as you revisit main idea throughout the year, pull the anchor chart back out to reinforcement.

Modeling with Mentor Texts

Another essential component to teaching main idea in upper grades is modeling. There are so many high-quality informational texts out there! For main idea, I like to choose texts that have a straight-forward message. These texts may be shorter/simpler than a typical intermediate mentor text. But, they will provide you with the information students need to properly learn main idea skills.

Below are a few of my favorite Main Idea mentor texts. These texts can be used as a read-aloud in a mini-lesson. They are perfect to use with any of the graphic organizers or interactive notebook pages.

Each of the links below are affiliate links to Amazon! To grab your copy of some of these mentor texts, click the links below:

• She Persisted Around the World by Chelsea Clinton
• Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanual Ofoso Yeboah
• Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca
• Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate
• Bats! Strange and Wonderful by Laurence Pringle
• Super Swimmers: Whales, Dolphins and Other Mammals of the Sea by Caroline Arnold
• A Nest is Noisy by Dianna Hutts Aston
• A Rock is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston

Lesson Additions

Don’t forget about adding informational videos and activities, like BrainPop! Tim and Moby make the idea of main idea easier to understand for students with great visual elements and explanations. There are graphic organizers and quizzes that your kids can use, too!

(Link: Brain Pop Main Idea Video )

Practice Simply Finding the Main Idea

When teaching main idea in upper grades, you are still going to want to scaffold skills and activities. So, you can start with simply finding the main idea with short texts or matching. In this activity, students are given four different “real-life scenarios” where they can identify the main idea. It is a great activity for drawing real-life connections so students can solidify their skills before applying them to longer texts.

Back It Up with Key Details

Your next step will be working with key details. It is important for students to be able to differentiate details. There are anchor charts, lessons, and activities specific to key details in these units. For the activity above, students will be formulating strong supportive details for each main idea statement.

This activity requires students to match details with specific main ideas. This will help students learn how to determine which details are important. It will also help them with understanding what kind of details support a main idea.

What about Multiple Main Ideas?

In 5th grade, students will be identifying multiple main ideas. For this, students will be looking for sections of information that are about a similar topic. Texts are longer and more detailed in 4th and 5th grade, so the information will be divided into sections. So, students will need to learn how to identify the main ideas of these subsections of text. Then, they will be able to figure out what the entire test is about.

This activity will have students look for the main idea of the different sections of the text. They will even be retitling the sections after learning what each section is about. Practice and skill application will be essential for students developing multiple main idea skills.

Want a free Main Idea activity to get you started?

FREE MAIN IDEA ACTIVITY

This free digital activity comes with links to Seesaw and Google Slides for your students. They will practice their main topic or main idea skills.

Or, would you like complete units for your Main Idea unit?

I have complete units for 4th and 5th grade Main Idea. These units have lesson plans, graphic organizers, reading passages with comprehension questions, task cards, interactive notebook pages, assessments, and more! I have also created a few activities in ready-made Google Slides. These are digital Main Idea activities for 3rd and 4th Grade. Click the button below to grab the link you need.

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33 Incredible Anchor Charts For The 5th Grade

By Beth Roberts | Last Updated June 2, 2022

An anchor chart is a teaching tool. While teaching a class, you and your students collaborate to construct a chart that summarizes the most critical content and tactics. By making thinking visible both the teacher’s and students’ anchor charts foster a culture of literacy in the classroom.

If you haven’t already, you’ll love using these in your classroom next school year. Anchor charts are incredible teaching tools for virtually any subject! Whatever subject you teach math, reading, writing, science, or even social studies anchor charts are an excellent tool for reviewing topics, engaging students, and assisting pupils in visualizing a variety of new content.

The following 30 anchor charts are a selection of the greatest ones we could discover online and in the world of teacher bloggers. Enjoy!

1. Note-Taking Anchor Charts

It was always a source of contention when teaching older students who wanted to highlight EVERYTHING in a nonfiction text when they were taking notes from it. In addition to outlining WHAT they should be searching for when reading, it also provides them with a method of categorizing the most significant material, which will make it easier for them to refer back to later. I’m looking forward to trying this out the next time I’m working on nonfiction notation.

2. Questions To Ask While Reading

This chart covers a wide range of topics, from causal relations to points of view and more. Use color to highlight the various categories and make it easy for students to find their focus while reading. Questions like these encourage pupils to consider the purpose of reading in and of itself. They also help children think about crucial fundamentals such as location and characters.

3. Weather Maps

When you’re in 5th Grade, the weather patterns are amazing. As a lesson, have students tune in to their local news channel to view the weather and then go over this weather map together.

4. Expository Text

When it comes to explaining a topic or issue , sometimes more than words are required. This anchor chart can assist in visualizing some of the several ways that something might be explained to a reader in text or graphic form.

5. Story Elements

Your pupils will become better readers if you go through the major elements that make up a tale with them. They’ll be aware of what to look for, and the process of searching for these components will make reading appear like a fascinating scavenger hunt.

6. List Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts can save you valuable time when writing a paper, especially if you use these in your classroom. Before pupils need to type a document out from scratch, it’s a wise idea for them to learn the keyboard shortcuts and adapt their typing habits accordingly. It helps differentiate between the various keyboard shortcuts with powerful, colorful icons that make it easier for learners to find and use them.

7. Retelling Anchor Chart

Anchor charts that provide a visual and an approach that students can use outside of the classroom are a favored kind of teaching tool! The pupils will eventually internalize these procedures and will be able to move away from utilizing a cueing system entirely and instead only using their hands or not using any cueing system at all.

8. Control The Clicking

Although children quickly master touchscreens, they may require little instruction on mouse abilities .

Improve your kids’ artistic abilities by using this fantastic Cloud Anchor chart!

10. Main Idea

Communicating the main idea is a difficult skill for young kids. Having an anchor chart that replicates graphic organizers that students might see on examinations or want to construct to help them record their ideas can be useful at times, especially in the early stages of learning. This interactive anchor chart is a fantastic representation of that choice! This one is one of my favorites.

11. Improve Web Browser Skills

When children are exploring the internet, they require a basic understanding of using a browser. Don’t forget to inform them about the wonders of reopening previously closed tabs!

12. Summarizing

There are a few distinct popular forms to choose from when it comes to summarizing. Even though many schools are going toward the SWBST method , I favor the three-sentence format because it is more consistent with what kids see on state assessments and applies to fiction and nonfiction texts.

13. Cause & Effect

There are less interactive cause-and-effect anchor charts on the market today. However, the notion of creating a book-specific version during a mini-lesson is one that I like. Some of the other charts, I believe, would be more appropriate for introducing the concept and displaying it to aid pupils in recalling the skill. No matter which style you choose, each of these will be an excellent visual aid in the classroom.

14. Create Strong Passwords

Using a specific password for every site is frustrating, and it’s easy to forget passwords and lose access to the sites you have visited. This is a life skill that they will require throughout their careers .

15. Read, Cover, Remember, Retell

With this notion, you can prevent pupils from skimming longer texts. By doing so, they’ll be able to break down the content into manageable parts and comprehend what they’re reading.

16. Character, Problem, And Solution

Decide on the key theme by deciding who does what and for what reason! This nonfiction main idea anchor chart is a great tool for summarizing the three main elements of a story’s plot. When reading, your students will have these three elements at the forefront of their minds and can easily refer back to them as they read deeper into the work. You need to print it off in color and make sure you have plenty of room on your board!

17. Point Of View

There’s a lot of potentials to include lesson ideas with this anchor chart. You can present your students with a situation and then ask them how they would express that in the story. What would the details be? In what ways does it evolve throughout time? Is the story told from a particular person’s perspective, or is it an entity, etc.? This is a particularly great person vs. team conflict starter too!

18. Decimal Place Value

Along with serving as a visual help for children as they progress through the decimal learning process, this well-organized anchor chart will also function as a reference tool.

19. Before, During, And After Reading

This is another main idea anchor chart that will benefit fifth graders. Students can track what has happened involving the protagonist, what has changed about the setting, and how the character’s personal growth has impacted the story.

20. Character Analysis

If you enjoy teaching character traits and analysis, this is your job. To master this ability, you’ll need an anchor chart, especially if you’re looking at changes over time. The following are just some of the favorite anchor charts for teaching this concept.

21. Just-Right Book

In many ways, a child’s current reading abilities are intertwined with their comprehension, and understanding how to select the correct book can help them acquire confidence in their abilities.

22. Inferring & Drawing Conclusions

Both inferring and concluding are extremely difficult skills for kids to grasp. As a reminder of the procedure and an opportunity for students to practice, anchor charts are a must-have. They came across some cool anchor charts on Pinterest that you want to test out with children the next time you teach them about problem-solving skills .

23. Decimal Operations

Here’s an excellent example of an anchor chart that may be utilized consistently during an entire instruction unit. Teachers can use student suggestions and brainstorming to fill in the blanks as they are taught the various procedures!

24. Author’s Mood

By determining the author’s tone and mood, a reader might learn much about the story. Students can see examples of both words in this diagram, which shows their differences.

25. Responding To Text – Citing

Many students have a notion of what they want to express but struggle to put it on paper. Sentence stems can be enormously beneficial to struggling readers and writers. They’re also an excellent scaffold for your English-language students. Even if your pupils do not require sentence stems, you may want to outline the stages involved in producing a high-quality response such as this one. It’s an excellent technique for students to double-check their answers before submitting them.

Many students find it difficult to identify the story’s theme since it asks them to distill an entire story down to its most essential idea. Students will benefit greatly from these two anchor charts, which will aid them in remembering what the topic is and categorizing the books they’ve been reading according to frequent themes in literature.

27. Summary Sentences

Sticky notes might help you make sense of longer, more intricate passages by creating summary phrases for each paragraph or section. When reviewing tests or producing papers, they’ll be quite beneficial to you.

28. Multiplication By Multiple Digits

This is a multipurpose anchor chart suited for all grade levels. It can aid learners in remembering times tables, and it’s also great for use during reading comprehension instruction. Students will like having a place to check-in when they need a refresher on how to multiply multi-digit numbers with this brightly colored chart! It also features a fantastic pneumonic device that helps people remember things without looking at them.

Volume is a lesson that is always enjoyable ! It’s difficult to overlook this useful graphic whether you teach it visually with movies and anchor charts or interactively with hands-on activities. There are so many activities you can use to strengthen students’ understanding of this skill, so keep your options open!

30. Author’s Purpose

Different approaches are used to teach students to determine the author’s purpose. While some teachers employ the P-I-E acronym, other tactics are gaining favor. Students are urged to think more critically about what the author attempts to portray via their writing, as illustrated by the following graph.

31. Meaningful Monitoring

A critical aspect of reading comprehension is monitoring one’s comprehension . To be a good reader, you need to understand how much you know and what remains unknown to you. This graphic provides an excellent process for monitoring your comprehension. Self-monitoring is critical for reading comprehension achievement at all levels. Giving kids some self-reflection questions to consider as they read is an excellent first step toward comprehension.

32. What Reading Looks Like

A lot of kids don’t realize what reading looks like. They think they are learning to read when they are learning to decode words, but this graphic illustrates that you are reading an entire passage to learn how it works. As depicted in this reading anchor chart, setting expectations for what reading looks like can help create the framework for comprehension.

33. Food Chains

This is a very simple but effective anchor chart for students to use when discussing the structure of food chains. This helps them understand that there are many different ways to classify animals and make sense of the system. When it comes to teaching food chains and webs, it is a blast! Using this really simple anchor chart, you can engage pupils and start their minds churning for more information.

Using a Main Idea Graphic Organizer Across Subject Areas

• Graphic organizers provide visual representations of cognitive processes. These visual cues help students organize concepts in a way that will aid in retention. Students can actually SEE relationships and connections between facts and concepts.
• Graphic organizers improve comprehension. Students are able to break down bigger concepts into smaller, more understandable chunks of information. 
• Graphic organizers increase student engagement. When filling out a graphic organizer, students are actively participating and contributing to the learning process.

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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15 Anchor Charts for Teaching Theme

Theme, central message, moral of the story… cover it with these anchor charts.

Identifying the theme of a literary work can be tricky to learn. How is theme different from main idea, and how do we know what the theme is if the author never says it explicitly? Like anything else, practice makes perfect when discussing literary themes. Check out these theme anchor charts to help your next language arts lesson run smoothly.

1. Themes in literature

Using examples of stories students already know and love is a helpful tool.

Source: Crafting Connections

2. Theme vs. main idea

Students often confuse theme with main idea. Make the distinction between the two with an anchor chart such as this.

Source: Michelle K.

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3. Examples of theme vs. main idea

Use examples students will relate to, so they can differentiate the theme from the main idea.

Source: Mrs. Smith in 5th

4. The central message

Have your students think about these questions.

Source: The Literacy Loft

5. Common themes

Give your students examples of common themes to help them think of others stories that may share these same themes.

Source: Teaching with a Mountain View

6. Text messaging

A text message approach to theme will resonate with students and create an engaging lesson.

Source: Elementary Nest

7. Use examples

Give examples of what is or is not a theme with a book the class has recently read.

Source: Young Teacher Love

8. Sum it up

This chart nicely sums up all aspects of theme for students to refer to.

Source: Mrs. Peterson

9. Clouds and raindrops

This weather-themed chart is too cute and fun to pass up.

Source: Bussing with Mrs. B

10. Story theme

Use evidence from stories your class knows and loves to pick out the theme.

Source: The Thinker Builder

11. Thinking about theme

Define and discuss theme with the class. What is theme? How do I identify it?

Source: 3rd Grade Thoughts

12. Interactive sticky notes

Place sticky notes on this chart to point out plot details to arrive at the theme.

Source: @mrshasansroom

13. Stated or implied

Is the theme stated or implied? Show the difference with this fun layout.

Source: @fishmaninfourth

14. Keep it simple

This one gets the message across and won’t overwhelm students.

Source: Upper Elementary Snapshots

15. What is theme?

Determine examples of each theme with sticky notes.

Source: Appletastic Learning

Loving these theme anchor charts? Subscribe to our newsletters for more teacher content.

Plus, check out tips for teaching theme ..

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14 Essential Tips for Teaching Theme in Language Arts

Including mini-lessons on theme and ways to assess students' understanding. Continue Reading

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Teaching Main Idea Vs. Theme

By Mary Montero

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If your students are anything like mine, they have an incredibly difficult time telling the difference between main idea and theme.  Before this year, I had always taught the skills in isolation.  Main Idea first, followed by Theme a few weeks later.  Most kids are familiar with main idea when they get to the upper grades, but it is still tricky for them.  Then add on top of that the idea of theme, and their minds are blown.  This year, I taught them separately, then integrated them.  It has helped with their understanding of main idea vs. theme SO much!

First, we made an anchor chart together where we brainstormed themes and then some fictitious main ideas that could go along with the themes (remember, the students already had background knowledge about what theme and main idea are independent of one another).  Here are two similar versions of the theme and main idea anchor charts I’ve made with students over the years: A note on the anchor charts: I want to clarify that the first example here does use what some identify as “topics” instead of themes. We talk about this in the classroom, but the anchor charts condensed them to one word. I DO encourage my students to use sentences to write themes instead of just one-word topics (as seen in the second anchor chart)

Free Main Idea Vs. Theme Sorts

The next day, they did a quick sort of main ideas and themes. This is when they really started to get it. They sorted the definitions as well as a few examples of both main idea and theme.

Get your FREE Main Idea vs. Theme Sort!

Subscribe to my newsletter and receive loads of free resources, lesson ideas, and teacher inspiration. When you subscribe, you’ll automatically receive this Main Idea vs. Theme sort in your inbox! Success! Now check your email to begin your download.

Discussion Questions

After they did the sort, I had them answer the following questions in pairs.  Some still struggled with this, but most of them could see that themes were universal, whereas main idea statements include specific details and are usually specific to one story.  Being able to look at the statements within the sort really helped them to see these differences.

After they had answered these questions in pairs, we had a really great discussion about main idea vs. theme as an entire class.

You can download a half-page version of the discussion questions free HERE .

Differentiated Main Idea Vs Theme Task Cards

Later, we started working on theme task cards using brief passages.  We all started with multiple choice task cards, which gave students three options, one of which was the theme, and the other was the main idea (the third is just a detail from the story).  For some of them who got it RIGHT AWAY, I had them select the correct answers, but then also rewrite the statements in their own words.

Then, the students who had a solid understanding moved on to paragraphs with no options.  I did give them a card to help guide them, but they were generating their own main ideas and themes.

Are your students also struggling to identify the difference between main ideas and themes? Visit my TPT store to purchase these differentiated Main Idea vs. Theme Task Cards to help your students master this tricky concept. With 16 original stories and four digital Google Classroom options, this resource is perfect for literacy centers, whole group lessons, warm ups, and small groups. You can also use the paragraphs for main idea or theme alone.

In addition to having students complete the cards independently, I have also used them in small groups. I printed several copies for students to read and led the small groups through it orally. The stories were great for discussion and it allowed me to really see students who understood it quickly. It was also beneficial because after I had the students tell me what they thought the theme was, they could see that stories had multiple themes sometimes!

I really believe this helped my students better understand the difference between main idea and theme.  I hope some of these ideas (and the freebie) can help yours, too! Happy Teaching!

More Main Idea Vs. Theme Ideas

NEW! Check out my post about how I use song lyrics to teach Main Idea and Theme !

Mary Montero

I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.

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21 Comments

Woo! I love the idea of integrating the two- I've always done them in isolation as well, but will definitely be using this! Happy anniversary!!

XO, Kelly Anne AppleSlices

What a great lesson! I, too, have always taught them in isolation and my students continued to struggle with both. I will certainly be using this lesson in the future! Great job!

This is great! A lot of people confuse the two. This is a perfect fit to teaching both accurately.

Thanks so much for the free sort! We have been working on these two throughout the year at various points, and I think that this will be a great refresher exercise for them. It will also let me know if they have it or if they need a small group reteach.

This is a great review. Thanks for sharing! Main Idea and Theme are always tough! Have a great week! Michele

Coffee Cups and Lesson Plans

Thanks, Mary! This is great. I'm adding your task cards to my wishlist right now. <3 ya!

A Teaspoon of Teaching

Thank you so much for sharing your FREEBIE Main Idea vs. Theme activity. This is a wonderful resource. I can't wait to check out your task cards too.

Best wishes! jen Apple Tree Learning Blog

I just tried to download the sort and it said the link had been disabled. 🙁

Thanks so much for letting me know. I just fixed it. Not sure what happened there.

The main idea vs. theme sort is exactly what I've been looking for to make sure my students can differentiate the two! Thank you!

I used this activity this year as part of my initial instruction on theme. It is a terrific resource. Thank you! I Have 2 Questions

Wow! Thank you so much for this excellent lesson idea and all of your wonderful resources! I am teaching this now, and your lesson has really helped me drive the point home to my 3rd graders! I just got your main idea/theme task cards yesterday, and I'm going to use them today. You are awesome! Jamie Thrills in Third Grade

you topic is very great and useful for us…thank you friv4school

omg this helps A LOT, thank you so much

Thank you for what you have shared, it is useful

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Draw in your understudies in comprehension the distinction between the principle thought of a story and the topic of a story with these 16 interesting, DIFFERENTIATED errand cards! The cards incorporate 16 unique stories. Set #1 incorporates a brief card urging understudies to see the distinction between fundamental thought and subject and additionally 16 half page cards. Set #2 incorporates the same 16 stories with 3 alternatives, one is the topic, one is the principle thought, and one is essentially an occasion from the story. The understudies utilize the numerous decision alternatives to focus the primary thought and topic from thesis writing service of the section.

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Thanks for this helpful post! We are teaching theme vs. main idea this week, and I'd love to use your sort, but for some reason, I keep getting a message saying "This webpage is not available." Any way you could e-mail it to me? I would REALLY appreciate it! Thanks for sharing your great ideas. 🙂 brittm.white2012[at]gmail.com

Your ideas are fabulous! Thank you so much for sharing…can't wait to see what comes next.

Awesome! One thing I tell students is that the "theme" is hardly ever in the reading, while the main idea can be found in the reading.

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