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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 16 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.

How a Canal Lock Works

A canal cannot run uphill. Where the land rises, engineers build a lock: a chamber with a gate at each end. A boat going uphill enters the lock through the lower gate. The gate closes behind it. Sluices in the upper gate are opened. Water flows in from the higher stretch of canal, and the boat rises with it. No pump is needed, because the water comes down by gravity. When the water inside matches the level above, the upper gate can be opened and the boat moves on. Going downhill, everything runs the other way: the water is let out, and the boat sinks with it.

  1. 1. What is the main idea of this text, and which details support it?
  2. 2. What is a lock?
  3. 3. Which gate does a boat going uphill enter through?
2.Read the text, then answer the questions.

Why Bread Rises

Yeast is alive. It is a fungus, and each grain of dried yeast holds millions of cells waiting for water. Add warm water and the cells wake up. They begin to feed on the sugars in the flour. As they feed, they give off carbon dioxide gas. The gas cannot escape, because kneading the dough has built a stretchy web of gluten that traps it. Thousands of tiny bubbles form, and the dough swells. In the oven, two things happen. The trapped gas expands in the heat, so the loaf rises further. Then the heat kills the yeast and sets the gluten, and the bubbles are locked in place. That is why bread has holes in it.

  1. 1. Summarise this text in one sentence.
  2. 2. What is the main idea of this text, and which details support it?
  3. 3. What gas does yeast give off?

LessonPrint · SL.3.2 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Main Ideas from What You Heard

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. A lock lifts a boat between two levels — supported by the gates, the sluices and gravity. 2. A chamber with a gate at each end, built where the land rises. 3. The lower gate.
  2. 2.1. Yeast wakes in warm water, feeds on flour sugars and gives off gas that the gluten web traps, and the oven sets those bubbles as holes. 2. Bread rises because living yeast makes gas that gluten traps — supported by the feeding, the bubbles and the oven. 3. Carbon dioxide.

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.