Soaring Into Summarizing!
Growing Independence and Fluency
Rationale: Once
children have learned to read accurately and fluently, they must
move on to the next step in reading. The ultimate goal of
reading is comprehension, and the next step in reading is
reading to learn. This lesson focuses on summarizing, a strategy
to help students begin to read to learn. This lesson will help
students learn to summarize by teaching them to delete trivial
and redundant information and focus on the important parts of a
text.
Materials:
·
Class set (including one for teacher) of the article "The
First Airplane" from Celebrating Chemistry. American Chemical
Society (2003)
·
Blank bookmark shaped like an airplane (for each student)
·
Markers (1 pack per group of students)
·
Poster with summarizing rules (1. Delete unimportant or
repeated information 2. Find important information 3. Write a
topic sentence)
·
Overhead projector
·
Pencil and paper (for each student)
·
Assessment chart:
|
Did the student? |
Yes |
No |
|
Get rid of
unimportant information? |
|
|
|
Get rid of
repeated information? |
|
|
|
Underline
important information? |
|
|
|
Write an organized
topic sentence using only the important information? |
|
|
Procedure:
1. Today we're
going to talk about a strategy to help us comprehend what we're
reading. Who remembers what it means to comprehend? (Call on
student.) That's right! It does mean to understand the message
of what you're reading. The strategy we're going to learn about
today is called summarizing. Summarizing is kind of like giving
a recap of what's in the text. Summarizing is a great way to
help you understand and remember what you read.
2. Before we
learn more about how to summarize, let's review what we've been
talking about lately. Who can tell me what we've been talking
about in social studies? (Call on student.) That's right! We
have been talking about inventors. Now let's review some of the
vocabulary we've talked about recently. Yesterday we said that
an engineer is someone who applies scientific knowledge to
practical problems. You could say, "The engineer who made this
plane is very smart." Which of these could be an engineer? A
mailman, a train conductor, or a banker? (Call on student.)
That's right! A train conductor could be an engineer because he
probably has to use scientific knowledge to solve practical
problems on his train. Yesterday we also talked about engines.
We said that an engine is a machine with moving parts that
changes power into motion. You could say, "The engine in my car
died so the car quit moving." Which one of these would not have
an engine? An airplane, a school bus, or a bicycle? (Call on
student.) That's right! A bicycle does not have an engine
because you use your legs to make the bicycle move instead of
using an engine.
3. Now that
we've reviewed our vocabulary, let's go back to talking about
summarizing. (Display summarizing rules poster.) You all have
airplane shaped bookmarks and markers on your desks. I want you
to copy down each rule as we talk about it, and then at the end
of the lesson I'll give you all a few extra minutes to decorate
your bookmark. The first rule of summarizing is delete
unimportant or repeated information. Go ahead and write that
down. (Allow writing time.) This means that if you see something
that's not really important for the meaning of the text or
something that you've already marked as important, you may draw
an X through it (if it's a separate article like the one we're
using today) or mentally delete it (if it's in a textbook). The
second rule of summarizing is to find important information. Go
ahead and write that down too. (Allow writing time.)
This means that when you see something that you think is
important to know you should underline it or maybe write down a
key word or phrase. The third rule of summarizing is to write a
topic sentence. Write that on your bookmark. (Allow writing
time.) This part is a little trickier, and we will practice it
together in a moment, but it means that once you've picked out
the parts of the text that are important you combine them to
create a sentence. This sentence captures all the important
parts of a paragraph within a text.
4. Pass out
copies of "The First Airplane," and display a copy on the
overhead projector. Now we're going to practice summarizing as a
class. Let's look at the first paragraph of our article:
At 10:35 a.m.
on December 17, 1903, two brothers from Ohio flew the first
successful airplane for 12 seconds and 120 feet along a beach in
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Taking turns as pilot, they flew
three more times that day. Each time they flew farther. On their
fourth try, they managed to go 852 feet in 59 seconds--an
amazing feat at the time. The two brothers had invented powered
flight.
I want everyone
to be following along with me and paying attention to how I
follow these rules. Let's look at the first sentence: At 10:35
a.m. on December 17, 1903. Do you think it's important to know
the date? (Discuss.) Sometimes it is important to know the dates
of things, but for the purpose of just understanding the main
points of this article we don't really need to know the date.
(Make an X through the date.) Let's keep reading: two brothers
from Ohio flew the first successful airplane for 12 seconds and
120 feet along a beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Hmm.. What
parts of this sentence are important for my understanding? I
think the part about two brothers might be important so I'm
going to underline it. From Ohio.. I'll make an X through that
because I don't think I really need to know that they're from
Ohio. Flew the first successful airplane. Oh I bet that part is
important! I'll underline it. For 12 seconds and 120 feet along
a beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I think it may be
important that they were in North Carolina so I'll underline
that. Taking turns as pilot, they flew three more times that
day. Each time they flew farther. On their fourth try, they
managed to go 852 feet in 59 seconds--an amazing feat at the
time. Since it says it's an amazing feat, I'll underline that
they flew for 59 seconds. The two brothers had invented powered
flight. I think I'll underline that because it definitely seems
important.
So now that
we've applied rules 1 and 2 of summarizing to this paragraph I'm
going to demonstrate how to use rule 3 and create a topic
sentence using the parts I underlined. I've got two brothers,
flew the first successful airplane, North Carolina, 59 seconds,
two brothers invented powered flight. Now I need to make this
into a sentence that makes sense. Well sense I have two brothers
already, I'll make an X through the first one. And now I've got:
Two brothers flew the first successful airplane in North
Carolina for 59 seconds. Now the only part left in that last
phrase that isn't repeated is the part about it being a powered
flight. So I'll change my topic sentence to: Two brothers flew
the first successful powered airplane in North Carolina for 59
seconds.
Does everyone
understand what I just did? Does anyone have any questions?
5. Now I'm
going to let you all practice summarizing with the rest of this
article. I want you to go through each paragraph and break it
down like we just did. Be sure to follow the rules for summary
and then change the order around in your topic sentence if
necessary so that it makes sense. I want you to write a topic
sentence for each paragraph in the article. You may just copy
the sentence that I wrote for paragraph one, and then you will
write four more topic sentences of your own. When you are
finished, staple your article to your paper with the topic
sentences and turn it in. Then you may decorate your bookmark.
You will all have time to decorate your bookmark, so please do
not speed through the assignment just to have time to color.
Assessment: I
will review each student's topic sentences as well as the
markings on each of their articles. I will use the assessment
checklist for each student listed above to know whether each
student followed the rules and understood how to summarize
accordingly. Their sentences for each paragraph may vary
slightly, but a good topic sentence for the second paragraph
might be: Orville and Wilbur Wright never learned about
engineering, but they learned how gears and pulleys worked from
working on bicycles in their shop.
References:
"The First
Airplane" from Celebrating Chemistry. American Chemical Society,
2003.
Wheeler, Mary
Kathryn.
On Summarizing.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/wheelerrl.htm