35 Reading Passages for Comprehension: Main Ideas & Summarizing: 35 Reading Passages for Comprehension

Great practice book for students who need work locating the main ideas and supporting details.Also, good practice for learning how to summarize. Good for grades 3-6 depending on student.

I used this product to help teach my daughter about main ideas and supporting details. It was very helpful and it helped her gain a better understanding.

I teach 6th grade and bought this book to use as a quick daily skill builder at the beginning of reading class. I also have other books in the series. Each week, we focus on one of the concepts (there are two concepts per book) and I give my class an exercise from that concept each day. They are quick and easy, but effective in developing important reading skills for non-fiction passages. The passages are well written and interesting. My students enjoy reading them and we are all learning new information, vocabulary, and facts about a variety of topics.The only thing, I would like to change is the answer key. There are only answers for the multiple choice questions. It would be nice to have sample answers for the fill in questions. You can figure them out, but sample answers save time.I would recommend these to any busy teacher (or homeschooling parent) looking to practice important reading skills in a fun, easy, and effective way.

Great resource to reteach or introduce the skill.

I am a school librarian and I have found this book to be very useful at the beginning of a class when I take attendance,in the middle of my class when some students are selecting books, or as a filler at the end of a class. The reading passages are short enough to fit on a smartboard so you don't have to waste paper by photocopying. Although I have used the multiple-choice questions, I find it much better to just ask the students to write down the main idea and details to support the main idea. I have found that the students really like the reading passages.

I use this series of books to reinforce skills for my four kids during the summer months when they are not in school. The pages are simply and clearly laid out. Instructions are clear and simple. All ages of kids are able to work on these independently. I tear the answer pages out of the back of the books so I can check their work when they finish pages. The concepts are clearly explained and taught in concise interesting formats that the kids enjoy doing.I will continue to buy books from this series for my kids through the years.

I chose 5 stars for this purchase because it was exactly what it was advertised as, a valuable classroom asset, quick and easy to use. Great for second language learners and those behind 2 or more grades with skills. This book was $26 at two teacher resource stores near where I live and it was 10 to 12 $ cheaper through amazon.

I agree with the reviewer who said that the passages are too short. They are ONE PARAGRAPH! (Though I admit that often a one paragraph passage can be more difficult to summarize since it is usually itself already something of a summary and, thus, there is not much 'fluff' to cut out.)But what irks me the most (as a homeschooling parent) is that there are no model summaries in the answer key to help both teacher and student: i.e., the answer key says only "summaries should include the information from answers 1 - 4." Which means, of course, that the authors didn't want to exert the effort to actually write and provide model summaries for the answer key.My sons and I did the first Summarizing exercise this morning and although each of them identified all of the correct details for questions 1 - 4, their summaries left MUCH to be desired. I wrote a summary of my own to show them as a model, but it would have helped me immensely if the answer key would have provided a sample answer . . . SINCE THAT IS WHY I BOUGHT THE BOOK. If I wanted to write my own summaries I could have picked an excerpt from any book or article -- for free -- and written the necessary summary to model for my students. I purchased this product as a time saver and because I assumed the authors would be better at writing summaries than I am -- and they probably ARE, which is why it is so maddening that they take our money yet do not provide us with the benefit of their expertise.Bottom line: It is SUCH A COP OUT for a product to state that it contains an answer key but to then load the answer key with statements like "See student work," "Summaries will vary," or (and this is my personal favorite): "Evaluate student's work." Yes, I'd LOVE to evaluate my student's work, dude, if only I had an ANSWER KEY to help me do that!