Super Summarizers!

Reading to Learn
Anne Jones

Rationale: As children grow older and become better/more experienced with reading, they accumulate knowledge of beneficial reading strategies. The most vital goal of reading is comprehension, and one strategy that assists them in reaching this goal is summarization. This lesson plan is designed to teach the concept of summarization and how to summarize.

Materials:

1.      1.  Copy of Fish Eyes Go Green article for each student

2.       2. Pencil for each child

3.       3. Highlighter for each child

4.       4. Paper for each student

5.       5. Assessment checklist for each student (attached)

6.       6. Copy of an article for teacher to put on the document camera

7.       7. Document camera

8.     8. Overhead marker

Procedures:

1.       Begin this lesson by asking the entire class who recalls what fluency is and what it means. Commend students that are able to successfully answer this question. Restate in your own words, “fluency is being able to read quickly, smoothly, and with expression.” Tell students, “Today, we’re going to learn a new concept called summarization. Even after we learn about this new concept, we still need to remember to read fluently.”

2.       Ask students “Does anyone know what summarization is?” Give the students time to think about their answers and time to respond. Explain to students, “Summarization is putting together all the major/important points in an article, passage, or text. We summarize things to make it easier to comprehend, and we omit information that is not helpful.”

3.       Say to students, “When we summarize, we start by removing any information that isn’t important or useful to us. We do this because this makes it easier for us to find the facts that are most important, and omit the ones that don’t assist us to comprehend the main point of the article. Next, we will reread the sections that we found to be important and make certain that there were not any other major details that we overlooked. Third, we put our points together and create a statement that covers everything the author is discussing about the article, passage, or text. Do all of you understand? Are there any questions? What will be our first step? What will be our second step? What about our third step?”

4.       “Ok class, it is now time to become skilled summarizers! In order to do this though, it is crucial everyone follow the three steps we just discussed! Today we are going to read a very interesting article about a greeneye fish. This text will tell us many different facts about these types of fish from where they live, what they eat, and their very unique eyes! Before beginning, there are a few words I need to define: ordinary, hue, and fluorescent. The words ordinary means means common, plain, or usual. Listen to how I use it in a sentence: ‘We plan to do the ordinary activities after school, like doing homework and eating dinner.’ Do you see how the word ordinary was used? It was used as an adjective meaning common, not special or of great notice.” Define the other terms and use them in a sentence as well.

5.       Once the class reads the text aloud as a group, I will reread the first two slides and demonstrate to the students how to summarize it. Then, I will voice to students that I want them to observe and witness how I choose the major parts of the passage.

By the light of day, a greeneye fish seems ordinary: It has a long, narrow body and a small head topped with large, upward-glancing eyes. But if you cut out the bright lights and turn on a dim blue-violet bulb, those eyes glow with an eerie, green hue. That’s because their lenses are fluorescent, which means they absorb one color of light and emit another.

6.       I will explain to them how I highlight the words/phrases that I think are the most important from the text, and how I cross out all of the other leftover words.

7.       I will ask the students if they all agree that these facts are important, and then ask them what we do next. I will give them time to come up with their answers, and then explain that we are to sum up our facts and write our topic sentence. “A greeneye fish is far from ordinary because they have fluorescent lenses in their eyes, which in certain light causes them to glow.” “How does this sentence sound? Did I mention all of the important facts? Let’s write this sentence on our papers.”

8.       “Now it is your turn to try summarizing the rest of the article on your own. The three steps will be displayed on the document camera if you get confused or need assistance. You are to work individually, but if you need help, then raise your hand and I will try to steer you in the right direction. When you believe you have all of the major bits of information, write your topic sentence and your summary.”

9.       When a majority of the class has completed the assignment, I will begin to call students one at a time to my desk and have them read their summaries to me. I will mark the assessment checklist accordingly while the students read their summaries. When they are done. I will review with them how they did and what they need to fix by asking them guiding questions so that they can hopefully come up with the correct answer on their own.

References:

1.       Fish Eyes Go Green

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/01/fish-eyes-go-green/

2.       The Reading Genie. Ally Johnson. “super Summarizers.” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/johnsonrl.htm

Assessment Checklist:

Student Name: ____________________________________                                        Date: ______________
   Yes                  No     

_____           ______                Picked out the major/most important information in the text

_____           ______                Omitted unneeded information

_____           ______                Comprehended the information from the text

_____           ______                Wrote a sentence(s) summarizing the most important points of the text

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