NEW STRATEGY - MAIN EVENTS AND SEQUENCING

Overview of Main Ideas and Sequencing The human mind is a limited capacity processor. That is, we are unable to store and remember more than four to seven items at one time. Unless we have been given more detailed directions, we are only able to remember the gist of the text after reading. Sometimes, however, our task is to understand and remember more information than can be summed up in a brief statement. We are required to identify the topic and supporting detail and identify or invent our own main idea or summary statement by combining ideas across sentences. This may be difficult for some students.

One of the techniques to help participants learn to identify what is important and what is not is to trace the main events of a story and check to see whether any events can be omitted or the order changed. The recall of main ideas in turn activates the recall of details. It is more efficient to remember the main ideas in sequence and fill in the details later than to try to store all of the details in the beginning.

1. to model how to identify the main events in a story.
   
   
2. to show how recalling the main events is often enough to trigger the recall of important details.
   
   
3. to highlight how identifying main events in sequence is a strategy to use in other situations when the task is to retain what has been read.