Using Paraphrasing and Text Structure Instruction to Support Main Idea Generation

Whether states use the Common Core State Standards or their own progressive state standards, students are consistently required to read informational texts, determine the main ideas, and integrate those ideas to write summaries. Unfortunately, many students with reading disabilities struggle to generate main ideas while reading, identifying a detail rather than the most important information in the text. Not surprisingly, if students struggle to generate main ideas for small sections of text, they will have greater difficulty connecting those main ideas across sections of text to write summaries. Get the Gist, a research-based paraphrasing practice, provides a process for students to stop after brief sections of text, determine the most important information, and put that information into their own words. Even when using a research-based practice like Get the Gist, students, particularly those with reading disabilities, may still have difficulty identifying the most important information (i.e., they identify a detail as the main idea). These students may benefit from using additional information or “clues” to accurately identify main ideas, and these clues may be derived from text structure. This article provides a step-by-step guide for teachers on how to utilize text structure awareness to support students with identifying the main idea (i.e. the gist). When integrated, Get the Gist and text structure facilitate improved main idea generation, which is a prerequisite for summary writing.