A peek into Mrs. Boyd’s classroom:

My 2nd graders have been learning strategies to take abstract thinking and make it visible. This fosters our engagement, uncovers our understanding, and promotes independent thinking.

Finding the main idea is a foundational 2nd grade skill that we make into a fun and concrete practice with a strategy called Headlines. After I read aloud to the class, students share the core idea of the chapter in the form of a headline. Reflecting on the main idea trains my students to distinguish between important details and the big picture. My students have grown in their ability to discern the essence of each chapter as I have read The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes and Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi.