Understanding Key Details in Informational Texts
Understanding Key Details in Informational Texts Objective: Students will be able to refer to details and examples in a text to explain what the text says explicitly and to support their inferences.
Learning Objectives
- Identify key details in an informational text.
- Use details from the text to explain what the text says explicitly.
- Make simple inferences based on details and examples in the text.
Materials Needed
- A short informational text suitable for 4th grade (e.g., a passage about animals or a simple science topic)
- Notebook or paper
- Pencil
- Highlighter or colored pencils
Key Vocabulary
- Informational Text
- A type of writing that provides facts and information about a topic.
- Detail
- A small piece of information that helps explain or support the main idea.
- Inference
- A conclusion reached by using evidence and reasoning rather than direct statements.
Detailed Activities
Reading and Highlighting Key Details
- Read the selected informational text aloud with your student, or have them read it silently if they can.
- Ask your student to highlight or underline important details in the text that stand out.
- Discuss together why these details are important and what they tell us about the topic.
Explaining What the Text Says
- Help your student answer questions about the text, focusing on what it explicitly says.
- Encourage your student to point to details in the text as evidence for their answers.
- Write down the answers together to reinforce understanding.
Making Inferences
- Ask your student questions that require them to infer information not directly stated.
- Guide your student to use the details and examples from the text to support their inferences.
- Discuss how we can use clues from the text to understand more than what is written.
Parent & Instructor Notes
- Encourage your child to take their time reading and thinking about the details.
- Support them by asking open-ended questions and prompting them to find evidence in the text.
- Praise their efforts to explain and infer to build confidence in their reading skills.
Assessment Questions
- What is the main topic of the text?
- Can you find three important details that tell us about the topic?
- What can you infer about the subject based on the details you found?
- Why do you think the author included these examples?
Extension Ideas
- Have your student write a short summary of the text using the key details they found.
- Create a simple graphic organizer to categorize details and inferences from another informational text.
- Read a second informational text on a related topic and compare the key details.
Frequently Asked Questions
Encourage them to read smaller sections at a time and ask questions about each part. You can also help by reading the text together and pointing out details.
Prompt them to think about ‘what does this detail suggest?’ or ‘what might happen next?’ Use examples from everyday life to practice inference skills.
Teacher’s Guide
Common Misconceptions:
- Students may confuse general ideas with key details; emphasize the difference by focusing on specific facts.
- Children might think an inference is just a guess; clarify that it is based on evidence from the text.
Scaffolding Ideas:
For Struggling Students:
- Provide shorter texts with clear key details.
- Use more guided questions and offer sentence starters for explanations.
For Advanced Students:
- Challenge them to find multiple inferences or explain why the author included specific details.
- Encourage comparing details across different texts on the same topic.
Pacing Recommendations:
- Spend about 15 minutes reading and highlighting details.
- Use 15 minutes for discussing explicit content and answering questions.
- Use the last 15 minutes for making inferences and supporting them with text evidence.
Standards
- 4.RI.3 — Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.
Printable Worksheet
Plan Your Own Lesson
Looking for a custom lesson plan? Try our Lesson Planning Generator — create standards-based plans for any topic, instantly!
Common Core Aligned Lesson Plans
Looking for another common core lesson? See all of the lesson plans here.
More Free Lesson Plans
We’re adding more every week! Check back soon or explore all our lesson plans here.
Leave a Reply