Learning to Remember and Loving to Read

Reading to Learn

Materials: copies of Jamestown, New World Adventure by James E. Knight (or any book of your choice, I chose this one because it had a lot of factual information.), string, clothespins, markers, access to chalkboard, poster with rules of summarizing (rules are provided in the procedure)

1. Find the parts of the story that would not affect it if they were left out. 2. Get rid of any information that is used more than once. 3. Find the important events in the story and use keywords to remember them. 4. Write what this book was about in one sentence.
 

Procedure: 1. Begin lesson by distributing copies of Jamestown, New World Adventure by James E. Knight. Have students read the book silently in the group or at their desk so they can read at they're own pace and understanding. "We are going read silently because it gives to practice to read more efficiently."
2. Attach a cord across the classroom and hang index cards on it with clothespins.
3. Get everyone's attention towards the cord with the index cards. Explain, "Today we are going to learn how to summarize a story. When you summarize you are finding the authors main points and supporting facts." Have a poster with the six rules of summarization and use child like language to review them with children.

To find a series of events we need to make sure our key words are listed in the order the events took place in the story. Rewrite list if needed to put key terms in the correct story sequence. Now let's think of actions that go with these important words we have listed. Provide an example and then call on children to help think of actions associated with the list of key terms. Briefly list these actions to the right of the terms.

Now if you had to write what this book was about in one sentence how would you do that? Help and model finding a topic sentence.

4. "We have just gone through the steps to summarize our story and now we need to put this important information in paragraph form." Model and have class as group help write a summary.

5. To end the activity for fun, help the students make a picture summary. Use the information from the summary you just prepared and allow students to draw a picture for each main idea. Hang them across the board on the string.

6. Review the summary of the story by calling on one student to read the summary aloud and another to follow the picture story line.

7. For an assessment, have them read another selected book on a totally different topic and have them write a summary about it.

Reference: Pressley, Michael "Strategies That Improve Children's Memory and Comprehension of Text" The Elementary School Journal Volume 90, Number 1

Beth Windham

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