Teaching Resources
Center
Want to learn more or plan a lesson? Check out these links!
- Reading Comprehension Home
- Making Connections
- Fluency
- Determining Importance
- Inferring
- Metacognition
- Questioning
- Synthesizing
- Visualizing and Imagery
- Vocabulary and Word Identification
- Writing Across the Curriculum
Important UNCG Links
Determining Importance
- About Importance
- Professional Books to help you develop lesson plans
- Children’s Books to use in lesson plans
- Some Helpful Web sites
Children’s and Young Adult Books that can be used with lesson plans:
Babbit, N. (1975). Tuck Everlasting. New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing any older. (F Bab)
Coerr, E. (2004). Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. New York: Puffin.
Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a child in Hiroshima races against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person will become healthy. (B Coe)
Ehlert, L. (1994). Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf. New York: Scholastic Inc.
A child describes the growth of a maple tree from seed to sapling. (E Ehl)
Fox, M. (1989). Koala Lou. San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
A young koala, longing to hear her mother speak lovingly to her as she did before other children came along, plans to win her distracted parent's attention. (E Fox)
MacLachlan, P. (1985). Sarah, Plain and Tall. New York: Harper & Row.
When their father invites a mail-order bride to come live with them in their prairie home, Caleb and Anna are captivated by their new mother and hope that she will stay. (F Mac)
1986 Newbery Award Winner
Paulsen, G. (1988). Hatchet. New York: Viking, Penguin.
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce. (F Pau)
Say, A. (1990). El Chino. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Co.
This book is a biography of Bill Wong, a Chinese American, who became a famous bullfighter in Spain. (791.8 Say)
Simont, M. (2001). The Stray Dog: From a True Story by Reiko Sassa. New York: Harper Collins.
A family befriends a stray dog, names him Willy, and decides to keep him. (E Sim)
Wiles, D. (2001). Freedom Summer. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
In 1964, Joe is pleased that a new law will allow his best friend John Henry, who is colored, to share the town pool and other public places with him, but he is dismayed to find that prejudice still exists. (E Wil)
Quotes:
Determining important ideas and information in text is central to making sense of reading and moving toward insight.
1(Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A., 2000, p. 118)
The term main idea refers to “determining what is important.” The “main idea” is often associated with expository text, but it is also important in narrative text, where readers reflect on the theme or moral of a story or poem.
2(Duffy, G. A., 2003, p.117)
2Duffy, G.A. (2003). Explaining Reading: A Resource for teaching concepts, skills, and
strategies. New York: Guilford Press.
1Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2000). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to
enhance understanding. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.