Summarizing Tsunami!
Reading to Learn
Rationale: The major goal in reading is to comprehend.
Comprehension is when a reader understands what they read.
For a beginning reader to reach this goal, it is necessary to
learn and practice summarization skills by identifying and
recalling main ideas in a reading.
This lesson will help students learn how to form a topic
sentence as a form of summarization. They will accomplish
this through a series of modeling and practice. This lesson will
also teach students the steps of summarization and allow them to
practice summarizing with a few interesting passages provided.
Materials:
One copy per student of Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #15 :
Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters By: Mary Pope
Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce that students will be able to
mark on with pencil (copies may be needed)
Lined paper and pencils per student
Smartboard with first paragraph of Tsunamis and Other
Natural Disasters
to display
Rubric for assessment:
|
When summarizing did the student: |
Yes or No |
|
Remove unimportant
information found in the text? |
|
|
Remove repeated
information found in the text? |
|
|
Pick out important
information from the passage? |
|
|
Form a main idea or topic
sentence? |
|
Procedures:
1. Introduction: "Today we are going to learn how to summarize
what we read in books. Does anyone have any idea what it means
to summarize? That's right! Summarizing is when we take the main
ideas from a story and form a short overview of what happened.
Summarizing helps us to understand what we have read. This is
also called comprehension."
2. "Now we are going to look at a new book that we
have never read before. The book is called Tsunamis
and Other Natural Disasters. This book will help us to
know the warning signs that a tsunami is closely approaching,
how volcanoes are formed, and if scientists can predict when
earthquakes are going to happen!"
3. Prior to reading the story, explain and model the steps to
summarization. Using a Smartboard, read the first paragraph of Tsunamis and
Other Natural Disasters.
We will mark out
unimportant and repeated details, highlight important
information, and form a main idea or topic sentence. "Now we are going to
learn the steps to summarizing. After reading a passage we must
first delete any information that is not important or that is
repeated. Secondly we have to identify important information and
details that will help us to form a main idea or topic sentence.
A topic sentence is the same thing as the main idea. Let's look
at the first paragraph of Tsunamis and Other Natural
Disasters on the
Smartboard. ["On December 26, 2004, Tilly Smith, a schoolgirl
from England, was on vacation with her family. They were
visiting an island off the coast of Thailand. The day was
bright and sunny as Tilly and her family walked along the
beach. The ocean appeared calm and clear."] Do you see any
information that is not important? "The ocean appeared calm
and clear" is not really that important, so let's mark it out
(mark these out). What about details that seem important?
"Tilly Smith was on vacation with her family" is important, so
let's highlight it (highlight or circle these details). Now
let's try and find or form a summarizing main idea about what
we have just read. "Tilly Smith was on vacation with her
family in Thailand and they decided to go for a walk on the
beach." This is the main idea of the first paragraph."
4. Remembering the steps of summarization will help
students to comprehend what they read. Students will now create
their own list with the steps to summarization to use while they
read and when they write their own summary. "Now each of
you should make a list of these steps to summarizing. You will
use this list to help summarize for yourself!"
5. "I want everyone to finish reading the next two
chapters of our book silently.
Make sure that when you are reading the story, it makes sense to
you. Do not be afraid to stop at the end of paragraphs, pages,
or even sentences and think about what you have just read. If it
does not make sense, go back and read it again before you move
on. While reading these chapters, use your pencil and list to
delete unimportant and repeated information, circle important
details, and underline or write your own topic sentence.
6. "When you have finished reading these chapters I would like
for you to write a summary, in your own words, of what happened
in the chapters that you read.
Make sure you ask yourself why things are happening or how
things are happening so that you are finding only the important
information. You will use your steps to summarization list to
help you write your summary. "
7. For assessment, the teacher will read each student's summary.
Using the same steps to summarization checklist, the teacher
will assess if the students have successfully learned how to
summarize a passage.
References:
Osborne,
Mary Pope., Natalie Pope. Boyce, and Sal Murdocca. Tsunamis
and Other Natural Disasters. New York: Random House, 2007.
Print.
Super Snazzy Summaries by Sarah Daughtry
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/daughtryrl.html
Remembering Our Way Through Reading by Jessica Horsefield
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/realizations/horsefieldrl.htm