Let’s Get to
the Bottom of It!
Rationale: Comprehension is the goal of reading. A great strategy for students to use in comprehension is to summarize the information. In this lesson students learn to identify important and less important details of a text in creating a summary.
Materials:
Highlighters and Black markers for each child
Copies
of “Baby
Hippo Orphan Finds a Friend” National Geographic
for Kids. Reported by Catherine Clark Fox on March 4, 2005.
Posters with paragraphs on them.
Procedure:
1. “Today we are going to learn how create a summary of text we read. Creating a summary means finding the most important parts and putting them in a shorter form than the original. Summaries can help us tell a friend the information in a quick way.”
2. “Follow along with me as I read this
paragraph and make a summary. (Have it written on the poster)
Let’s
remember that we are reading silently. Our eyes move but our lips do
not. Now I
will read this paragraph silently to myself. “This weekend is the
big football
game. The teams playing are
3. “Now let’s go through and highlight some
important things in this paragraph. The main idea of the
paragraph is
that a big football game is being played this weekend. “Football
game” is
an important phrase and so it “this weekend” so I am going to highlight
them,
but the rest of the sentence is not that important so I am going to
mark it
out. We can also mark out the sentence about getting a hotdog
because it
is not important. The teams that are playing are important, so I
will
highlight those. Now I have all the important parts of this
paragraph
highlighted in yellow. I can easily remember what the main idea
of this
paragraph is. Now let’s take all the highlighted information and
make a
short summary of this paragraph.” Allow students to help you come up
with a
summary. Note using the highlighted words and marking out the
unimportant
ones. If they need assistance, try “Now I know that
4. “Now it’s your turn.! Now, I want you
to summarize this paragraph. “As lightning flashed around them,
Sabrina and
her parents ran for cover. When it
stopped raining, we thought it was safe," says Sabrina. They started to
hike back to their car along the trail. Then zap! A lightning bolt
struck
nearby. It happened so fast that the family didn't know what it hit. A
jolt of
electricity shot through their bodies” (from Lightning!)
Have the class work together as a whole and let children summarize
it.
5. Now we are going to work on something a little longer. This is an article from National Geographic about a baby hippo who got separated from his family. Read and find out who his new friend is. Everyone take a highlighter and black marker and read this article silently to yourself. Then highlight the important information that will help you remember the main ideas and mark out the less important information.” Allow students time to read and share their ideas.
5. “Now use the highlighted parts to make a summary of this article. Remember a summary is written in your own words and has only important information in it.”
6. “When you are done share your summary with a partner. Talk about how they are similar and different.”
7. Assessment:
Take up each students summary and check for including important details
and
deleting unimportant ones. Use these
questions as a checklist:
-
Is unimportant or redundant information left out of the summary?
-
Are important events and ideas stated?
-
Do they state the author’s main idea and supporting details?
References:
Fleming,
N. 1,
2, 3…A Summary.
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/connect/flemingrl.html
Fox,
C. C. Baby Hippo Orphan Finds a
Friend. National Geographic for Kids. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2005/03/owen.html
Owens,
A. K. Sum it Up! http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/explor/owensrl.html
Skelton,
Renee. Lightning. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0406/.
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