According to Fountas and Pinnell (2006), students need to be able to search for and use all kinds of information, which includes identifying the important information and supporting details in a text. This allows them to have the basic information available and accessible for thinking about and beyond the text (p. 33). How to go about identifying the important information in a text - and what qualified as important information in a text - varies according to whether the text is fiction or non-fiction, so this section is split into those two main categories.
Click the buttons below to be linked to strategy pages for identifying important information in fiction and informational texts!
Fontas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2006). Chapter three: Reading is thinking: Within, beyond, and about the text. In Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, talking, and writing about reading, K-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.