Daisy Data

Daisy Data

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Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about knowing which information is important so you get the main idea of a text.

Read "Daisy Data" by Margaret Cahill, Junior Journal 27, pages 15 to 19.

Question

Choose the three pieces of information below that are most important to this text.

    • Daisies grow in lots of different places.

    • The mountain daisy is a native plant.

    • Daisies belong to the Compositae family.

    • Daisies used to be called 'day's eye'.

    • There are lots of different types of daisies.

    • Daisies can be useful in lots of ways.

Question

What is the main idea of this text?

    • Daisies are plants.

    • There are lots of different daisies and some live in New Zealand.

    • There are lots of different daisies and they can be used for all sorts of things.

Task administration: 

This task can be completed with pencil and paper or online (with auto-marking).

Equipment: Daisy Data, written by Margaret Cahill. Junior Journal 27, 2003.

What is the main idea?

  1. Remind students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important.
  2. You may wish to explain to students that finding the main idea is hard, but that it can be found if they first work out what information is important to the text, i.e., the whole text. You may also wish to explain that important information will be mentioned more than unimportant information.
  3. Explain that a) assesses if they understand which information in "Daisy Data" is important. Tell students that first they need to read the article, then tick three boxes next to the information they think is most important to this text.
  4. Explain that b) assesses if they understand what the main idea is. Tell students they need to think about the important information they identified at a), then put a tick next to the main idea.
  5. The task can be done individually or in groups.
  6. Responses can be discussed by teacher and student only, or within larger groups. Group discussion has the advantage of giving students opportunities to consider others' ideas and to practise justifying their own.
Copyright: 
Daisy Data - Text was first published by Learning Media Limited on behalf of the Ministry of Education © Margaret Cahill 2003. Illustration © Philip Web. Reproduced with permission.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
main idea, comprehension, inference, evaluating, School Journal, Junior Journal 27
Description of task: 
Students are assessed on their ability to identify important information and the main idea of an article about plants. Junior Journal 27, reading age 7.5-8. Text provided.
Curriculum Links: 
 
Links to the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading:
This resource helps to identify students’ ability to:
  • use comprehension strategies
as described in the Literacy Learning Progressions for Reading at: http://www.literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz/The-Structure-of-the-Progressions.
Answers/responses: 
  Y4 (05/2007)
a) Students identify the three pieces of important information:

  • Daisies grow in lots of different places.
  • There are lots of different types of daisies.
  • Daisies can be useful in lots of ways.

Students identify all three of the above pieces of important information.
 
 
moderate
difficult
moderate
 
very difficult
b) Students identify the main idea of the text:

  • There are lots of different daisies and they can be used for all sorts of things.
 difficult
Diagnostic and formative information: 

This resource was trialled by 117 Year 4 students across a range of New Zealand schools.

a) Distinguishing between important and relatively unimportant information

Important information identified by students:Students generally had difficulty identifying the three most important pieces of information. 52% of trial students identified the first correct piece Daisies grow in lots of different places; 34% correctly identified There are lots of different types of daisies; 40% correctly identified Daisies can be useful in lots of ways. The majority of students did not appear to know that frequently mentioned details, in both written and visual texts, will always be important to text. For example, in this text there are many details about daisies growing in different places, different types of daisies and daisies being used in many ways.Unimportant information identified by students:The piece of relatively unimportant information that was most commonly chosen as important was Daisies belong to the Compositae family. Students may have erroneously thought this information was important because it had a "big" or scientific word that also started with a capital letter in it.

b) Identifying the main idea

Most students had difficulty identifying the correct main idea at task b). 38% of trial students correctly identified There are lots of different daisies and they can be used for all sorts of things. Almost the same percentage incorrectly identified There are lots of different daisies and some live in New Zealand. These students did not recognise that the phrase some live in New Zealand is not important to this text.

 

Next steps: 

Students having difficulty identifying important information

If students have identified relatively unimportant information in a) as important, it may be necessary for them to go through the text to find the details that relate to each piece of information. An effective and active way for students to make such connections is by photocopying the text and giving out highlighters. Assign a given detail in a) to each student (or a pair) and ask them to highlight where reference(s) to their detail appear in the text. You may first need to model the process of finding details and deciding if they are important or unimportant. Think aloud as you do so. For example, "Where in the text does it tell us about Daisies used to be called 'day's eye'? There are no details about this on page 15. On page 16 there's a heading that says 'Where did the daisy get its name?' Its name is about what it's called, so the heading is related to Daisies used to be called 'day's eye', but does having a heading make it important? I think it only makes it important if the text says something about it often. Under this heading, there are only two sentences and one picture that tell us about what the daisy's name used to be – so it's not mentioned often here. I can't see anything else about what the daisy's name used to be on any of the other pages. See how often your piece of information is talked about, in the pictures and the words."Also see Self-assessment below.  

Students having difficulty identifying the main idea

The main idea is what the author values and gives emphasis to. Going back to a) to establish the three pieces of important information will help students make a decision based on evidence. It is then about combining the three pieces of important information that leads to the main idea. In this case, the opening statement in the main idea There are lots of different daisies is a combination of the important information at a) about daisies growing in different places and there being different types of daisies. (Details about daisies growing in different places are mentioned on pages17, 18 and 19; details about there being different types of daisies are mentioned on pages 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19.) The second part of the main idea they can be used for all sorts of things is from the last piece of important information, which has details about it mentioned on pages 16, 17 and 19.The value in rereading text to check and possibly change their initial thinking needs to be stressed to students.

Self-assessment

Involve students in the process of working out areas of success and need identified by this assessment task. When working on their next steps with them, plan and encourage periods of reflection on exactly what learning is taking place and how it is taking place, e.g., if the need is to be able to identify key words (what they are learning), students know that they can do this by working out what kinds of words could be relevant, then when possible key words have been found, justifying why they are relevant (how learning is taking place). For example, before looking for details for Daisies grow in lots of different places ask students what sorts of words would tell them about different places. Students then brainstorm a range of possibilities, from names of countries to hot/cold, wet/dry, coastal/mountainous, city/country, dark/light combinations. When students go on to find evidence of different places in the text, they can then make links to their brainstorm.