Reading to Learn
Allison Brock
Rationale:
Students will get practice summarizing while they are reading, which
will help them to remember what they just read.
Materials: copies of the article ãTrouble at the
Whitehouseä from Time for Kids Magazine (October 31, 2005)
for each student, summarization checklist, markers, paper, pencil, and
chalk
Procedure:
1. Begin by asking the students if they remember talking about
silent reading. Discuss that we use silent reading
to helps us understand what we are reading. Then
tell the students that there are other ways to comprehend a story, and
one way is through summarization. Ask them if any
of them know what summarizing means. Explain that
summarizing is retelling something in our own words, but only including
the main parts. Then tell the students ã I am going to
teach a few necessary steps that will help you begin to summarize your
readings, and then we will practice summarizing some text
together.ä
2. There are three easy steps to summarization. Write the steps on
the board while explaining them.
Step 1: Keep the most important details.
Step 2: Get rid of the less important details.
Step 3: Write it in your own words.
3. Pass out the article ãTrouble at
the Whitehouseä from Time for Kids Magazine (October 31,
2005) to each student. Tell them to begin reading the article
silently to themselves and be sure to give them enough time to finish
reading it.
4. Model for the students how to summarize
the first paragraph. Read the first paragraph out loud to the
students and tell the students to listen for important details.
Then summarize the first paragraph aloud for the students:
ãThe Vice Presidentâs Chief of Staff resigned after he was
accused of lying under oath.ä After summarizing the
paragraph, remind the students of the three steps used to summarize the
paragraph.
5. Give the students a chance to look over the
article silently again.
6. Have the students summarize the rest of the
article by themselves. Remind them to only keep the
main details and get rid of the less important ones. Also
remind them to use their own words.
7. While the students are summarizing, walk around
the classroom to be sure they are not having problems.
8. Assessment: Take up the
studentâs summaries and check that they kept the important
details, got rid of the less important ones, and used their own words.
References:
Beason, Margaret. ãSumming It Up Can be
Fun!!ä <http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/guides/beasonrl.html>
ãTrouble at the Whitehouse.ä
Time for Kids Magazine. October 31,
2005.
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/news
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