Giant Weta II
What is the main idea?
- Remind students that the main idea is what the author wants readers to understand is important and valued in the text as a whole.
- 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 which 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.
- Before reading, teachers may wish to clarify the word "endangered", as in task a) "Giant weta are endangered". See Working with Students section: Next steps.
- Explain that a) assesses if they understand which information in "Wetas with Backpacks" is important. Tell the 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.
- Explain that b) assesses if they understand what the main idea is. Tell the students they need to think about the important information they identified at a), then put a tick next to the main idea.
- The task can be done individually or in groups.
- 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.
- use comprehension strategies
| Y4 (05/2007) | ||
| a) |
Students identify the three pieces of important information:
Students identify all of the above pieces of important information: |
moderate
difficult moderate
very difficult
|
| b) |
Students identify the main idea of the text:
|
easy |
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:
At task a), about 50% of trial students correctly identified the first important piece of information Giant weta are endangered; 36% correctly identified Scientists study weta; 50% correctly identified Radio backpacks are used to track weta. Many students did not appear to know that frequently mentioned details will always be important to text. For example, in this text there are many details that support the fact that giant weta are endangered, and yet only 50% correctly identified this as important. This may be because students did not understand the word "endangered", so teachers may wish to explain this before students begin reading the text. See Next Steps.
52% of trial students incorrectly identified as important the relatively unimportant information Rats and mice eat weta. 68% incorrectly identified You need a special aerial to listen for the beeps as important - students may have been drawn to this because of two pictures showing the aerial, or because of the word "special" being synonymous in students' minds with "important". The third relatively unimportant piece of information The backpacks are taken off the weta after about three weeks was incorrectly identified as important by 44% of students.
b) Identifying the main idea
62% of trial students correctly identified the main idea at task b).
Although most students correctly identified the main idea, Scientists are finding out about giant weta to help them survive, it cannot be assumed that they can do this independently as this resource provides considerable scaffolding. For example, in task a) students only have to choose between six pieces of information, whereas if they were independently finding the main idea they would need to choose between all the information a text presents and:
- identify the information that is mentioned most often;
- put this information into groups; and
- combine it.
In task a), three pieces of information that are most important to this text are presented to students. At task b), students should recognise the main idea as a combination of the most important information from task a). While 62% of students correctly identified the main idea, they did not then reassess their choices at a) to align them with the main idea.
Refer students to the first two sentences on page 22:
Once, there were thousands of giant weta in New Zealand, but rats and mice have eaten most of them. Now, only a few giant weta are left.
Ask students to summarise these sentences. Ask them if they know of a word that is often used to talk about species that are low in number. Clarify that the term "endangered" applies to the species, not to individual weta. See Technical language.
