Tom's Tryathlon

Tom's Tryathlon

Auto-markingPencil and paperOnline interactive
Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Working with Students
Further Resources
This task is about looking for important information that will help you get the main idea of a text.

Read Tom's Tryathlon by Kristine Hornblow (Ready to Read, 2004). Then answer the questions below.

Question

  1. What three pieces of information are most important in Tom's Tryathlon?

    • Tom got a swim cap and a T-shirt.

    • Tom wanted to get a medal.

    • Sometimes Tom found practicing quite hard, but he kept going.

    • In the Tryathlon, Tom had to swim, bike and run.

    • Tom had to do lots of training for the Tryathlon.

    • Biking was easy for Tom but running was hard work.

Question

  1. What is the main idea of this text?

    • Tryathlons encourage people to do exercise.

    • Entering the Tryathlon meant doing lots of tough practice for each of the three events.

    • Medals were given to everyone when the Tryathlon finished.

Task administration: 

This task can be completed with pencil and paper on online with auto-marking.

  • 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.
  • Explain that a) assesses if they understand which information in "Tom's Tryathlon" is important. Tell the students that first they need to read "Tom's Tryathlon", then tick three boxes next to the information they think is most important.
  • 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.
  • The task can be done individually or in groups.
  • Responses can be discussed by teacher and student only, or within larger groups.

Equipment:

"Tom's Tryathlon", written by Kristine Hornblow.  Photographs by Peter Crawford. Ready to Read. Learning Media Limited, 2004. 

Copyright: 
Tom's Tryathlon - Text and images were first published by Learning Media Limited for the Ministry of Education. Text copyright © Kristine Hornblow, 2004.  Photographs copyright © Peter Crawford, 2004. Reproduced with permission.
Level:
2
Curriculum info: 
English, Making meaning, Reading
Key Competencies: 
Thinking
Keywords: 
main idea, comprehension, transactional, recount, inference
Description of task: 
Students are assessed on their ability to identify the main idea of a text that recounts one person's experience of a Tryathlon.
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: 
a) The three pieces of important information are:  

  • Sometimes Tom found practising quite hard, but he kept going.
  • In the Tryathlon, Tom had to swim, bike and run.
  • Tom had to do lots of training for the Tryathlon.
b) The main idea of this text is:

  • Entering the Tryathlon meant doing lots of tough practice for each of the three events.
Diagnostic and formative information: 

This resource was trialled by 34 Year 4 students. The trial involved small groups of students across four primary schools.

Task a)   Distinguishing between important and relatively unimportant information

Most students correctly identified two out of the three most important pieces of information. The two that most students correctly identified were Sometimes Tom found practising quite hard, but he kept going and Tom had to do lots of training for the Tryathlon. About half the students did not identify In the Tryathlon, Tom had to swim, bike and run, even though Tom's training and the Tryathlon focussed on these three events.The option that half the students incorrectly identified was Biking was easy for Tom but running was hard work. This option has two out of the three events of the Tryathlon, and, as such, is relatively unimportant, both about Tom's experience and about the Tryathlon. Students may have chosen this as important because they saw the word "hard" and connected it to the option with "hard" in it. These students were focusing too closely on Tom's training for the Tryathlon, not on his whole experience of the Tryathlon.About a third of students incorrectly identified Tom wanted to get a medal as important. On page 7, this is given as only one of the reasons Tom entered the Tryathlon and so it is unimportant. Students may have thought this was important because Tom's satisfaction with his medal is how the recount finishes, both in the written and visual texts. The photo and the last sentence "I can't wait to show off my medal at school!" together make quite a powerful statement that could have influenced these students.

Task b)   Finding the main idea

About two thirds of students correctly identified Entering the Tryathlon meant doing lots of tough practice for each of the three events as the main idea.However, about a third incorrectly chose Tryathlons encourage people to do exercise as the main idea. Students who made this choice possibly did so because they were thinking of this book as a non-fiction book about triathlons generally.Although most students correctly identified the main idea, it cannot be assumed that they can independently do so since this resource provides considerable scaffolding. For example, in a) the students only have to choose between six pieces of information, whereas if they were independently finding the main idea they would need to choose from all the information the text presents.

Next steps: 

Task a)   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. This can be done by photocopying the text and giving out highlighters. Assign a given piece of information from a) to each student and ask them to highlight where detail(s) of this appear in the text.You may first need to model the process of finding details to decide if the given information is important or unimportant. Think aloud as you do so. For example, for the given piece of information Tom got a swim cap and a T-shirt, say: "I wonder where in this recount details about this information are given? Here are some details on page 6 where Tom tells us: "Two weeks before the race, I got another pack in the mail. This had my swim cap and my Tryathlon T-shirt in it". The visual text also shows us the T-shirt and the swim cap. These details directly match the given piece of information Tom got a swim cap and a T-shirt. But are there any other details about this information? Let's have a look...On page 7 the visual text shows the T-shirt on the table. On page 10, the visual text shows Tom in his Tryathlon T-shirt. The visual text on page 11 shows the swim caps, and on page13 Tom says "Off go my goggles and swim cap". But none of these tell us about Tom getting the T-shirt or swim cap, so I think that these details do not match Tom got a swim cap and a T-shirt. I now know the details about Tom getting a T-shirt and a swim cap are really only on page 6, so this piece of information must be unimportant."For those students who think that the sixth given piece of information is important, ask them to note where and how often it is mentioned that Tom found biking easy but running hard (once, on page 5).Modelling this process with students will help them understand that relatively unimportant information gets little mention in text. They will then know on what basis to reject information as unimportant and accept other information as important.

Task b)   Students having difficulty identifying the main idea

Going back to a) to establish the three pieces of important information will help students make a decision based on evidence. Details about them are mentioned more often and students identify, group, and then combine them to form the main idea. In combining the groups of details to form a main idea, students will see that the main idea encompasses the three key ideas from a): The Tryathlon was hard work, it required practising, and it had three events.For the students who thought of this book as a non-fiction book about triathlons generally, get them to reflect on the content of the recount. Say: "Thinking about this recount, this whole book, what does the author want to tell us?" About one person's experience of a Tryathlon. (Although titles don't always do so, in this case, the title 'Tom's Tryathlon' supports the author's focus.) "So through this person, what do we as readers learn about Tryathlons?" They are hard work, require lots of practice, and have three events. NOTE: The value in rereading text to check and possibly change their initial thinking needs to be stressed to students.

 
For the Ready to Read teacher support materials, and PDF and audio versions of the text, see: Toms Tryathlon | TKI
Duffy, G. (2003). Explaining reading: A resource for teaching concepts, skills, and strategies. NewYork, NY: The Guilford Press.
Ministry of Education. (2003). Effective Literacy Practice is Years 1 to 4. Wellington: Learning Media Limited. Also available online here.