Summarizing Summary!
Reading to Learn
Rationale: To become a successful and efficient reader, children must have the
skills to comprehend what they read. For a
beginning reader to reach this goal, it is necessary to learn and practice
summarization skills to identify and recall main ideas in a reading. When
students know how to properly summarize a passage they are able to comprehend
the meaning of it better. Through this lesson, students will be able to
summarize passages by picking out important information, eliminating trivial
details, and organizing the main points into a main idea.
Materials:
*Highlighter for each student
*Overhead Transparency of National Geographic Article: 'Slow Down for Calvin The Right Whale'
*Overhead projector
*Printed copy of National Geographic Article: 'Slow Down for Calvin The Right
Whale' for each student
*Lined paper for each student
*Summarizing poster with 3 points:
1.Pick out the most important information
2.Get rid of unnecessary information.
3.Write one to two sentences that include only the important information drawn
from the passage
*Assessment Checklist:
|
Yes or No |
Task |
|
|
Picked out most important information |
|
|
Ignored unnecessary information |
|
|
Created one-two sentence summary with important information |
Procedure:
1.Today, we are going to learn an important tool that will make us better
readers. It is summarization. Does anyone know what that means? Allow students
to make guesses. Well, summarization is the process of shrinking a passage into
a sentence or two by taking out the unimportant parts and picking out the main
facts that readers need to understand the story.
2.Let practice summarizing together. Hand each student a printed copy of the
article, ‘Slow Down for Calvin the Right Whale’, and a highlighter. Put the
transparency of the article on the overhead.
3.Let’s read the first paragraph and try to summarize it. Teacher reads aloud
the passage to students:
In 1992, the mother of a North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena
glacialis) was hit and killed by a ship in Canada's Bay of Fundy.
Researchers studying these whales named the 8-month-old baby Calvin because they
knew that in order for it to survive, it would need to be feisty, like the
character in the cartoon strip Calvin
and Hobbes.
SAY: ‘Now let's look at the steps on our summarizing poster. First, I need to pick out the most important information. Underline important information: In 1992, mom of right whale, killed by a ship, baby survived, feisty like character in cartoon, Calvin and Hobbes. SAY: Now that I have underlined the important information and ignored the unimportant parts, now I need to create a sentence about the summary. Let's try this: In 1992, a mom of a right whale was killed by a ship, but her baby survived and was named Calvin, because he was as feisty as the character in the cartoon, Calvin and Hobbes.
4.See, instead of writing two long sentences, I wrote one sentence that told me
the same important information. Let's try the next paragraph together. Read the
next paragraph silently to yourselves, mark out the unimportant information and
highlight the important information. Once you have finished, we will work
together to create a summary. Give students time to read and highlight.
5.What were some important things that you highlighted? Review their answers and
circle good answers on the transparency. Now that we have the important facts,
let's make a summary sentence. Any ideas? Work with students to create a
summary.
6.Now, on your own, I want you to read the last two paragraphs in the article
and create a one- two sentence summary. Remember to highlight your important
passages, cross out the unimportant passages and write your summary on a sheet
of paper. Turn in your summary stapled to your highlighted paper.
Assessment: Students will be assessed on their summarization sentences. I will
use a checklist to assess their progress and to determine if any students need
further help and practice with this skill.
References:
Fox, Catherine Clark. "Slow Down for Calvin the Right Whale." National
Geographic Kids.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Slowdownforcalvin
Gluckman, Amanda. "Long Story Short".
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/gluckmanrl.html