Reading for what it adds up to

Word	What it means
Main idea	The point a whole passage makes about its subject. It may be stated in one sentence, or never stated at all.
Supporting detail	A fact, example, action or description that backs the main idea up.
Inference	A conclusion about something the text suggests but never states, reached from clues plus your own reasoning. Without a clue to point at, it is a guess.
Character trait	A lasting quality — stubborn, loyal, careless — as opposed to a feeling a character has for one moment.
Motive	The reason a character does something.
Setting	Where and when a story happens, including the conditions of that place and time.
Atmosphere	The feeling a passage creates in the reader: tense, peaceful, lonely. Also called mood.
Context	What surrounds a line — the events before it, the situation — which can change what it means.

In 1990 the lake behind our town had no loons at all. That year the county banned motorboats on the north arm, and volunteers anchored floating nest platforms near the reeds. By 2005 two pairs were nesting there. Last summer the count was eleven. The loons did not come back on their own; people made room for them.

A model reading. Test each possible main idea against every sentence.

• “Loons nest on floating platforms.” — one detail. Too narrow.
• “People always harm wildlife.” — the passage shows the opposite, and “always” is bigger than one lake. Too broad.
• “Loons are beautiful birds.” — maybe, but not in the passage. Outside knowledge.
• “The loons returned because people changed how they used the lake.” — the ban, the platforms and the counts all support it. The main idea.

Here the last sentence states it. Nonfiction often puts the main idea first or last; fiction usually never states it, and you build it from the details.

When the band teacher called Dev's name for the solo, he stood up, sat down again, and then stood. On his way to the front he straightened the music on three other stands, none of them his.

A model reading. The passage never says Dev is nervous. It shows him changing his mind about standing and finding small jobs on the way. People delay what they dread, so the inference is that Dev is nervous about the solo — and every part of that can be pointed at.

Feeling or trait? “Nervous” is how Dev feels right now. To call him shy — a trait — you would need a pattern across the whole story.

Motive. Why does he straighten the music? “To delay reaching the front” fits every detail; “because he is tidy” fits one action and ignores the rest.

The rink lights hummed over empty ice. Somewhere a door banged, and the sound came back twice off the boards. Rahel laced her skates alone, her breath hanging in front of her, and did not look toward the stands.

A model reading. The setting is an indoor rink, cold, with nobody else there. The atmosphere is lonely and uneasy: empty ice, one bang echoing twice, a girl lacing up alone. Nothing has happened, yet every sound is louder for the silence around it — and she will not look at the stands, which makes us wonder what she expects to see there.

Context changes the meaning. If the page before told us Rahel was cut from the team yesterday, this paragraph is about loss. If her tryout is tomorrow, the same words are about nerves. When a question quotes one line, reread the sentences around it before you answer.

• Choosing a detail as the main idea, or a general truth bigger than the passage.
• An inference no detail supports, however likely it would be in real life.
• Treating a one-moment feeling as a character trait.
• Describing where and when when the question asked how it feels.
• Reading a quoted line on its own, without the sentences around it.