Use stated details to infer, find the main idea, explain what happens and why, and work out key words in a science article

Learning goal: Use text evidence to demonstrate understanding of an informational text. Provide details explicitly stated in the text, use those stated details to make and support inferences, analyze the development of ideas by determining the main idea with key details and summarizing, and analyze a scientific process: explain what happens and describe why it happens, based on specific information in the text. Determine the meaning of both general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in an informational text. This lesson teaches Ohio's 2026 English language arts standard, first implemented in the 2027-28 school year.

Original article — Where Does the Rain Go?

Paragraph 1. When rain falls on a forest or a grassy field, much of it soaks into the soil. Roots, fallen leaves and loose earth act like a sponge. The water moves slowly down through the ground, and some of it reaches streams days or weeks later.

Paragraph 2. A town is different. Roofs, roads, driveways and parking lots are usually hard surfaces, such as shingles, asphalt and concrete. Water cannot soak through these hard surfaces, so it runs across them instead. This moving water is called runoff. Runoff flows into gutters and then into storm drains, the openings along curbs that are often covered by metal grates. Pipes under the street carry the water away. In many towns, storm drains carry water straight to a nearby stream or river without cleaning it first.

Paragraph 3. On its way, runoff picks up whatever lies on the hard surfaces: bits of litter, oil dripped from cars, soil from bare ground and fertilizer washed off lawns. After a heavy storm, a stream in a town can rise quickly and turn muddy, because a large amount of runoff arrives all at once.

Paragraph 4. One way to help is a rain garden. A rain garden is a shallow, bowl-shaped garden planted where runoff naturally flows, such as below a roof's downspout or beside a parking lot. The bowl holds the water for a while so it can soak into the ground instead of racing to the drain. Plants with deep roots keep the soil loose so water can move into it, and the soil traps some of the dirt and oil. A rain garden is not a pond. It is built so the water soaks away, and a garden that stays flooded for many days is not working as planned.

Paragraph 5. Students at a school we will call Maple Street School (the school and its numbers here are invented for practice) noticed a wide puddle that covered the sidewalk after every storm. They measured it after three storms and drew its outline in chalk. With help from adults, they planted a rain garden in the low spot where the puddle formed. After the next three storms they measured again. The puddle was smaller each time. The students wrote that one garden will not fix a whole town's runoff, but many small gardens could slow a lot of water.

Explicit details and inferences. An explicit detail is stated directly in the words of the text. You can point to it. "Water cannot soak through these hard surfaces" is explicit (paragraph 2). An inference is a conclusion you reach by combining stated details with your own reasoning; the text does not say it in those words. For example: A town with more pavement probably sends more runoff to its stream than a town with more grass. The article never says that sentence. But paragraph 2 states that water cannot soak through hard surfaces, and paragraph 1 states that grassy land soaks water up. Put together, those details support the inference. A strong inference always names the stated details it comes from. An unsupported guess, such as "rain gardens will make towns flood-proof," goes against paragraph 5, which says one garden will not fix a whole town's runoff.

Main idea and development of ideas. The main idea is the most important point the whole text makes. Key details are the facts that hold it up. Here the main idea is: Hard surfaces in towns turn rain into fast, dirty runoff, and rain gardens help by letting that water soak into the ground. Watch how the article develops that idea step by step. Paragraph 1 describes what normally happens in nature. Paragraph 2 contrasts the town and introduces runoff. Paragraph 3 explains the harm runoff can do. Paragraph 4 presents a solution. Paragraph 5 gives an example and a limit. Each paragraph adds one piece, so to analyze development you explain what each part adds and how it connects to the next. A summary retells the whole text briefly in your own words: the main idea first, then the key details in the order the text gives them, with no small details and no opinions of your own.

What happens and why. Science texts explain processes. To explain what happens, retell the steps in order: rain lands on a roof, runs into the gutter, flows into the storm drain and reaches the stream. To describe why it happens, give the cause stated in the text: the roof is a hard surface that water cannot soak through. A why-answer must be based on specific information in the text, not on something you only imagine. "Because the drain is broken" is not in the text; "because hard surfaces do not let water soak in" is.

General academic and domain-specific words and phrases. Informational texts use two kinds of words that you may not meet in everyday talk. Domain-specific words and phrases belong to one subject. This article's subject is rainwater in towns, and its domain-specific words are runoff, storm drain and rain garden. General academic words appear in many school subjects: surface, outline, naturally. You could meet surface in science (the surface of a pond), in mathematics (the surfaces of a box) and in social studies (the surface of a road). The article helps you determine what both kinds mean, and its clues come in several forms. A definition clue states the meaning: "This moving water is called runoff." A renaming clue sets a short explanation right beside the word, after a comma: "storm drains, the openings along curbs that are often covered by metal grates." An example clue lists cases, often after such as: "hard surfaces, such as shingles, asphalt and concrete" shows that a surface here is the outside layer of a roof or road, the part the rain lands on. A contrast clue tells what a thing is not: "A rain garden is not a pond. It is built so the water soaks away." Sometimes the clue is not in the same sentence, so read the sentences before and after the word. When you state a meaning, name the clue you used, then test the meaning by putting it back into the sentence.

A common mistake: treating the first sentence or the most interesting fact as the main idea. "Many storm drains are covered by metal grates" is true and stated, but it is too small; the whole article is not about storm drains.

Worked example 1 — Explicit or inference? Statement A: "Runoff can carry oil from cars." This is explicit; paragraph 3 lists "oil dripped from cars." Statement B: "A parking lot next to a stream could make the stream dirtier after a storm." This is an inference. Support: paragraph 3 says runoff picks up oil and litter from hard surfaces, and paragraph 2 says storm drains in many towns carry water straight to a stream. Combining those two stated details supports the inference.

Worked example 2 — Main idea with key details and a summary. Main idea: Hard surfaces in towns create fast, dirty runoff, and rain gardens help water soak in. Key details: (1) water cannot soak through roofs and roads; (2) runoff carries litter, oil, soil and fertilizer to streams; (3) a rain garden holds water so it can soak into the ground. Summary: "In nature, rain soaks into soil, but in towns hard surfaces turn it into runoff that flows through storm drains to streams. Runoff carries litter, oil, soil and fertilizer and can make streams rise quickly. Rain gardens are shallow planted bowls that hold runoff so it soaks in, and the soil traps some dirt. At one example school, a puddle shrank after students planted a rain garden, though one garden cannot fix a whole town's runoff."

Worked example 3 — What happens and why. What happens after a heavy storm in a town: runoff rushes into storm drains, the stream rises quickly and turns muddy. Why it happens, based on the text: the hard surfaces do not let water soak in, so "a large amount of runoff arrives all at once" (paragraph 3), and the runoff carries soil from bare ground, which makes the water muddy.

Worked example 4 — Correcting an unsupported inference. A reader writes, "The Maple Street puddle disappeared forever." Check the text: paragraph 5 says only that the puddle "was smaller each time" after three storms. A supported version: "The puddle got smaller after the rain garden was planted, which suggests the garden helped water soak in."

Worked example 5 — Determine the meaning of a domain-specific word and a general academic word. Runoff (domain-specific). Clue: paragraph 2 says, "This moving water is called runoff." The word this points back to the sentence before it: water that cannot soak through hard surfaces "runs across them instead." Meaning: rainwater that flows over the ground instead of soaking in. Hard surfaces make much more of it, which is why the article is about towns, but runoff can also flow over lawns and fields when the water cannot soak in fast enough. Test it by putting the meaning in place of the word in paragraph 3: "On its way, rainwater flowing over the ground instead of soaking in picks up whatever lies on the hard surfaces" makes sense. Outline (general academic; you also make an outline for a report). Clue: paragraph 5 says the students measured the puddle and "drew its outline in chalk," and later that the puddle "was smaller each time." Meaning here: a line drawn around the edge of the puddle to show its shape and size, so the students could compare the puddle after later storms. The clue for runoff is a stated definition; the clue for outline comes from the sentences around it.

Evidence chart (representation task): Make a two-column chart headed "Stated in the text (with paragraph number)" and "What I can infer." Fill three rows. For every inference, draw an arrow back to at least one stated detail. Add a third column, "What happens / why," for the runoff process, and write the cause beside each step.

Independent performance: Read a new short science or history article chosen with your teacher. Write: (1) two explicit details with paragraph numbers; (2) one inference supported by at least two stated details; (3) the main idea in one sentence with three key details; (4) a summary of four to five sentences; (5) one process or event from the text, explaining what happens and why, using specific information from the text; (6) one general academic word and one domain-specific word or phrase from the text, each with its meaning and the clue you used.

Success criteria: My explicit details really are stated in the text. My inference is not stated word for word but is supported by details I name. My main idea covers the whole text. My summary uses my own words and includes the key details. My why-answer uses a cause the text gives. I state what one general academic word and one domain-specific word or phrase mean in the text and name the clue for each.