Main Idea Headlines

This creative nonfiction reading worksheet helps students in Grades 4-6 strengthen their ability to identify central ideas, summarize information, and write with clarity and precision. Using short news-style excerpts, learners read carefully, determine the main idea of each passage, and create concise newspaper-style headlines that capture the most important message without unnecessary details.

Learning Goals

• Central Idea Identification (Grades 4-6) – Determine the main idea of short informational passages.
• Concise Summarization – Condense information into a brief headline that reflects the core message.
• Critical Interpretation – Analyze text to decide what information is most important and relevant.
• Media Literacy Skills – Understand how headlines represent key ideas in informational writing.

Instructional Benefits

• Teacher-Created Resource – Designed by educators to align with upper elementary ELA standards.
• Creative yet Structured Task – Blends analytical reading with engaging, purposeful writing.
• Focus on Precision – Helps students avoid retelling details and instead highlight key concepts.
• Flexible Use – Works well for literacy centers, independent practice, small groups, or assessment.

This printable worksheet helps students build strong summarizing and inference skills by challenging them to express complex ideas in a clear, compact form. By crafting headlines, learners practice identifying what truly matters in a text while improving writing clarity and critical thinking. Ideal for classroom instruction or homeschool use, this no-prep activity offers meaningful practice in central idea recognition, informational reading, and creative summarization.

This worksheet is part of our Central Ideas of Text collection.