All text contains a theme, and to be developed must have basic elements that allow, when reading, an understanding of it. The author exposes two types of ideas within his textual structure: main and secondary, they make up the argument that gives body to the topic addressed.
Solé (2001) points out that:
It is the one that informs about the most important statement or statements that the writer uses to explain the topic. It can be explicit or implicit in the text, and appear anywhere in it. It is expressed by a simple phrase or two or more coordinated sentences, and provides more information and different from the one that includes the subject. The reader must have mastery of this ability to achieve the development of reading comprehension and this is achieved through the search of the most relevant data, that is, those that occupy prominent places in the texts. (p 118)
The main ideas are the most outstanding manifestos in the text, because they reflect the essential information provided. These can be present at the beginning of the reading, expressed in the title or inserted throughout the content. It is important that the reader knows how to search the fundamental data of the text so that he can achieve understanding.
It is convenient to teach the students what the main idea is and what it is for. The strategies for the identification of the main ideas are important for the comprehension of the reading since they are directly related to the objectives that guide the reader, the author's intentions and above all it is a skill of every critical and autonomous reader and is It is necessary for students to understand its usefulness and achieve it or build it. (Ibidem, p.118).
Teachers must explain, in the first years of schooling, the importance in the location of the main ideas, because they provide the reader with the purpose that the author of a given text has had. The location of these or their construction are fundamental for the comprehensive activity to take place.
