Hopping Into Summarization!

Emily Jackson

Reading to Learn

Rationale: After students learn how to read, the next step would then be reading to learn. To do this, students need to learn how to comprehend what they are reading. For a beginning reader to reach this goal, it is necessary to learn and practice summarization. This lesson will teach students the steps of summarization and allow them to practice these steps using resources.

Materials:

SMART Board,

National Geographic article “Lost” Long-Fingered Frog Found in Africa SMART Board document and copy for each student

Paper, pencil and highlighter for each student

Poster with summarization steps: 1. Highlight important details 2. Scratch out repeated or unimportant details 3. Organize important parts by summarizing what you have learned

Summarization checklist for each student

Procedure:

1. Open the lesson by discussing comprehension and summarization. "Does anyone know what it is called when you understand what you are reading? It's called comprehending. If you understand what you are reading, then you comprehend it. When you comprehend things, you learn them. Today we are going to learn a strategy to help us comprehend or understand what we read. This strategy is called summarization. Summarization is picking out the most important information out of a book or text that you are reading. You try not to worry the small details; instead, just the main points of a selection. We are going to learn this strategy together!"

2. There will be a poster on which the teacher has listed the steps to summarization displayed in the front of the classroom. The teacher will explain the poster to the class. "These are the three steps we will use to summarize:

1. Pick out all the important details.

2. Find details that are not important to the text or are repeated and get rid of them.

3. Organize the important parts of the text. This step also includes making a main idea to summarize what you have learned."

3. "Lets work together to learn this strategy. We are going to be summarizing the first paragraph of an article from National Geographic about frogs. These frogs are different from other frogs. Let's read the first paragraph together and see if we can find some of the reasons why they are so unique.” Pass out a copy of the article “Lost” Long-Fingered Frog Found in Africa to each student.  Allow the student's time to read it silently. Have students quietly look up at you when they are finished reading. When the students have all read the first paragraph of the article silently, read the paragraph aloud. Use the SMART Board to display the text and model how to summarize using the 3 steps for summarization. Encourage the students to follow along and assist you as you go through this process. "First we need to highlight the important information. Does anyone see something important? Yes, it is important to know that the frogs are called amphibians. We need to highlight that! Do you see any others? Yes, we need to know that these frogs are found in central Africa. What about any thing that we do not need or that is repeated? We could probably cross out the part that tells us the month in which the frogs were rediscovered. Lets cross those out by drawing a line through them with our pencil. All right, now that I have completed my two steps I can now summarize with the important information I have left! The Bururi long fingered frog has an elongated “ring” finger on each hand. This amphibian is found in central Africa. That's a great summary of the first paragraph!"

4. Assessment: After the students have had enough practice working together as a class summarizing the first paragraph in the article, the students will try summarizing on their own. Give them the opportunity to finish summarizing the rest of the article on their own. "Now that we have practiced this skill of summarizing together, I want you to finish summarizing the rest of the article on your own. Remember to show the important information with your highlighter and cross out the unimportant or repeated information with your pencil. Then write your summary. Does anyone have any questions?" Once the students are finished, collect their work and score using the following checklist:

References:

Article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/04/120403-lost-species-long-fingered-frog-african-animals-science/

So What Did I Read by Cassie Dillard: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/dillardrl.html

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