Sum it UP

 



by Mary Cox Brown

Rationale:
    One of the most important things for children to learn in reading is reading comprehension. Summarization is one of the ways that children learn to comprehend.  This lesson will help children learn to summarize stories as a group and then work on their own to summarize.

Materials:
    -Paper
    -Pencil
    -Chalkboard
    -Chalk
    -A bookmark for each student with the 5 summarization steps on it
           Summarization steps:
            1.    Pick out important details that are necessary to the story.
            2.    Pick out the less important or repeated ideas from the passage and eliminate them.
            3.    Highlight the important and necessary details using key words.
            4.    Pick a topic sentence
            5.    Invent a topic sentence if there is none.
    -Copy of A copy of National Geographic Article “U.S. Endangered Species Act Works” by Maryann Mott for each student
         for each student.

Procedure:
1.    Start by asking the students if they know what comprehension means.  "Good job!  Comprehension is understanding what you read and then remembering if after you have finished. .  Today we are going to learn a couple of steps that are going to help us comprehend our reading. Our new technique is called summarization. To summarize we pick out the most important parts of the text.  The entire time we are reading we take out the parts of the text that do not add to our main idea.

2.    Explain summarization.  “Summarization has 5 easy steps to remember."  WI will write them on the board as they are explained so students will follow along.  "Step one is to pick out important details that we think are necessary to the story.  The second step is to pick out the less important ideas or ideas that are repeated and take them away.  Number three is to use key words to highlight the important parts of the text. The next thing that we do is to pick our topic sentence.  Our last step is to invent a topic sentence if we don’t have one.  I will then pass out the bookmarks so that the children can have a way to remember the 5 steps.  I will encourage them to use these whenever they are reading.


3.    "Alright, now that we are familiar with comprehension and summarization, we are going to read a passage from an article and put our steps into action.  Read the first paragraph SILENTLY to yourselves.  While you are reading, make sure that you are getting enough information to summarize the paragraph.  When summarizing, remember how key it is to make sure that you are trying to figure out the important details from the ones that might not be so important.  Raise your hand when you are done so we’ll know when to move on."

4.    After the class is finished reading, I will model for them the first time.  I will go through the five steps and to let them know how they should be looking to find the things that will help them summarize and the things that they can discard.

5.    "Does everyone feel that they understand how to summarize? GOOD now that y’all are sure you know how to summarize, I want each of you to summarize the rest of the article on your own.  

6.    When they have finished reading silently, they will summarize the article on their own.  "Now that you have completed the reading, take out your piece of paper and pencil  to summarize the article.  Don’t forget to remember to list the important details of the article.  Separate the important details from the less important ones.  List your keywords and then using your main ideas and keywords make a topic sentence.  If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me. 
7.    Assessment, I will collect their summarizations and read each to see if they have used the five steps of summarization to  write their summary.  I will also be walking around while they are writing their summaries to make sure that they are on the right track.  


References:

Vest, Amy.  What’s the Main Idea??  
    

Mary Cox Brown

Lesson Design 4

 

Sum it UP

 

Rationale:
    One of the most important things for children to learn in reading is reading comprehension. Summarization is one of the ways that children learn to comprehend.  This lesson will help children learn to summarize stories as a group and then work on their own to summarize.

Materials:
    -Paper
    -Pencil
    -Chalkboard
    -Chalk
    -A bookmark for each student with the 5 summarization steps on it
           Summarization steps:
            1.    Pick out important details that are necessary to the story.
            2.    Pick out the less important or repeated ideas from the passage and eliminate them.
            3.    Highlight the important and necessary details using key words.
            4.    Pick a topic sentence
            5.    Invent a topic sentence if there is none.
    -Copy of A copy of National Geographic Article “U.S. Endangered Species Act Works” by Maryann Mott for each student
         for each student.

Procedure:
1.    Start by asking the students if they know what comprehension means.  "Good job!  Comprehension is understanding what you read and then remembering if after you have finished. .  Today we are going to learn a couple of steps that are going to help us comprehend our reading. Our new technique is called summarization. To summarize we pick out the most important parts of the text.  The entire time we are reading we take out the parts of the text that do not add to our main idea.

2.    Explain summarization.  “Summarization has 5 easy steps to remember."  WI will write them on the board as they are explained so students will follow along.  "Step one is to pick out important details that we think are necessary to the story.  The second step is to pick out the less important ideas or ideas that are repeated and take them away.  Number three is to use key words to highlight the important parts of the text. The next thing that we do is to pick our topic sentence.  Our last step is to invent a topic sentence if we don’t have one.  I will then pass out the bookmarks so that the children can have a way to remember the 5 steps.  I will encourage them to use these whenever they are reading.


3.    "Alright, now that we are familiar with comprehension and summarization, we are going to read a passage from an article and put our steps into action.  Read the first paragraph SILENTLY to yourselves.  While you are reading, make sure that you are getting enough information to summarize the paragraph.  When summarizing, remember how key it is to make sure that you are trying to figure out the important details from the ones that might not be so important.  Raise your hand when you are done so we’ll know when to move on."

4.    After the class is finished reading, I will model for them the first time.  I will go through the five steps and to let them know how they should be looking to find the things that will help them summarize and the things that they can discard.

5.    "Does everyone feel that they understand how to summarize? GOOD now that y’all are sure you know how to summarize, I want each of you to summarize the rest of the article on your own.  

6.    When they have finished reading silently, they will summarize the article on their own.  "Now that you have completed the reading, take out your piece of paper and pencil  to summarize the article.  Don’t forget to remember to list the important details of the article.  Separate the important details from the less important ones.  List your keywords and then using your main ideas and keywords make a topic sentence.  If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me. 
7.    Assessment, I will collect their summarizations and read each to see if they have used the five steps of summarization to  write their summary.  I will also be walking around while they are writing their summaries to make sure that they are on the right track.  


References:

Vest, Amy.  What’s the Main Idea??  
    http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/breakthroughs/vestrl.htm



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