Super Summarizer!

By: Wendy Counts

Reading to Learn

Rationale: For students to understand a story they have to have comprehension. If someone reads without comprehension it would be pointless. One way for students to have a better comprehension is by summarizing the story. A summary of the story should take away unimportant text and repeated information. This lesson teaches children how to pick out the important information of a text.

Materials:

1.  Poster with the Four Rules for Summarization:

1. Pick out important details

2. Eliminate repeated or unimportant information

3. Highlight important key words

4. Find or develop a topic sentence

2. The article from National Geographic Kids: Harriet Tubman: Civil War Spy; http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/PeoplePlaces/Harriettubman

3. The article from National Geographic Kids: PlayPumps: A New Invention Turns Work Into Play: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/PeoplePlaces/Playpumps

Procedures:

1. "Today we are going to learn what comprehension is, do you know what it is?" Allow the children to answer. "That is right, comprehension means to understand". A good way for us to understand what we have read is by summarizing.

2. Explain to the students what summarization means. "To help you with summarization we are going to have 4 rules". (Display on poster)

1. Pick out important details

2. Eliminate repeated or unimportant information

3. Highlight important key words

4. Find or develop a topic sentence

"I have the rules displayed on a poster; look at these rules to help you remember how to summarize."

3. Model summarizing by this excerpt from National Geographic Kids. Place article on overhead, and underline the important information.

"Harriet Tubman is well known for risking her life as a "conductor" in the Underground Railroad, which led escaped slaves to freedom in the North. But did you know that the former slave also served as a spy for the Union during the Civil War and was the first woman in American history to lead a military expedition?

During a time when women were usually restricted to traditional roles like cooking and nursing, she did her share of those jobs. But she also worked side-by-side with men, says writer Tom Allen, who tells her exciting story in the National Geographic book, Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent."

"Ok, now I am going to underline the important information and cross-out the unimportant. We need to underline her name and that she worked for the Underground Railroad. Need to underline that the Railroad was used for slaves to be free during the Civil War. Also, the fact that she was the first woman to lead an expedition is important, and she was a spy. All the other information we can cross-out." Allow the students to come up with a couple of sentence to tell the main idea of the passage.

4. Pass out the article from National Geographic: PlayPumps: A New Invention Turns Work Into Play. "Make sure you underline the important parts of the article and cross out the unimportant, and use the poster to help you grasp the idea of summarizing. On
the back of the article I would like you to write me a topic sentence."

Assessment:

The students will be assessed by using the four rules I have on the poster. When they turn in their article with the underlining, crossing-out, and topic sentence I will be able to see if they have to concept of summarizing.

Reference:

Fox, Catherine Clarke, National Geographic Kids: "Harriet Tubman: Civil War Spy"

April 14, 2008. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/PeoplePlaces/Harriettubman

Fox, Catherine Clarke, National Geographic Kids: "PlayPumps" April 14, 2008.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/PeoplePlaces/Playpumps

Rosko, Natasha: Sit Down and Read!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/roskorl.html

Sparkman, Rachel: Summarize This!

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/sparkmanrl.html

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