Basic Reading Comprehension Skills

The primary goal for reading is to understand the writer’s main idea. Finding the main idea is a basic reading skill. This section will explain some of the different ways to find the main idea. It will also explain how to use some of the other basic reading skills. Some of these include: finding facts and details, finding sequences and patterns, using context clues, making inferences, making logical conclusions, and sorting facts from opinions.

Although the basic skills are presented one at a time for clarity, they all work together.

The Main Idea

Writers write articles, essays, books, poems, and other types of literature for a reason. The main reason for writing is to communicate an idea. One of the main goals of readers, then, is to discover the writer’s message — the main idea.

What are main ideas?

The main idea is sometimes called the theme, thesis, or moral. People sometimes confuse topics with main ideas. “Vacations” is a topic. The writer hasn’t said anything about the topic, so it is not a main idea. “People need to save money to pay for a vacation.” is a main idea. The writer is naming the topic and then making a statement about the topic. In expository writing, the main idea is usually stated. In other forms of literature, the main idea may not be stated.