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Main Ideas from What You Heard is a free printable Grade 3 English worksheet on pulling the main ideas out of something presented, aligned to Common Core standard SL.3.2. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two pupils in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 10 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Main Ideas from What You Heard

SL.3.2

NameDate

Read the text, then answer the questions.

1.Read the text, then answer the questions.

The Salmon's Return

A salmon hatches in a river, swims to the sea, and comes back years later to the river it was born in. It finds its way home by smell. Every river carries its own mixture of soil, rock and plants, and a young salmon learns that smell before it leaves. The return journey is upstream. The fish leap waterfalls, sometimes several metres high, and they do not eat once they enter fresh water. Because it is not feeding, a salmon uses up its own body on the climb. By the time it reaches the gravel where it hatched, it is thin and worn. There it lays its eggs. Most Atlantic salmon die soon afterwards.

  1. 1. Does a salmon eat on the return journey?
  2. 2. Summarise this text in one sentence.
  3. 3. What is the main idea of this text, and which details support it?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Morse Code

Morse code turns every letter into a pattern of short and long signals: dots and dashes. The commonest letters were given the shortest patterns. E is one dot. T is one dash. Q, which is rare, is dash-dash-dot-dash. Because of that choice, an average message is much shorter than it would be otherwise. A message can be sent as sound, as light, or as taps on a pipe. That is why it survived so long: it needs almost no equipment. Timing carries the meaning. A dash is three times as long as a dot. The gap between letters is three dots long, and between words, seven. SOS was chosen because it is easy to recognise: three dots, three dashes, three dots.

  1. 1. What is the Morse pattern for SOS?
  2. 2. How long is a dash compared with a dot?
  3. 3. What is the main idea of this text, and which details support it?

LessonPrint · SL.3.2 · Set 10 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Main Ideas from What You Heard

Set 10. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. No — it does not eat once it enters fresh water. 2. A salmon hatches in gravel, lives at sea, then smells its way back upstream without eating to lay eggs where it was born. 3. A salmon returns to its birth river to breed — supported by the smell, the upstream climb and the eggs.
  2. 2.1. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. 2. Three times as long. 3. Morse turns letters into timed dots and dashes — supported by the letter lengths, the timing rules and SOS.

More practice for SL.3.2

Pick out the main ideas and details from something you heard or saw.

Teaching this next? Getting the Main Ideas From Listening is the 40-minute plan for it, with the misconceptions to expect.

All Grade 3 worksheets

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to SL.3.2 of the Common Core State Standards for English language arts.