Face to Face Summary!
Rationale
The ultimate goal of reading instruction is
comprehension,
reading to learn. In order to comprehend
text, students must be able to independently use strategies that
shorten text
to focus on the main ideas. Summarization is an effective, research-based
strategy that
aids children in comprehending text (Pressley, et. al.)
Three rules should guide summarization and
its instruction: deleting trivia and
redundancies, superordinating items and events, and compositing a
statement to
cover everything the writer is saying.
During this lesson, students will work in pairs to practice
summarization skills using our three rules to effectively comprehend
text. At the end of the lesson, students
should
have strategies to assist them in reading to learn.
Materials
-
Computers with internet access to National
Geographic Kids website
(http://www.
nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/)Chalkboard
and chalk
- Following
checklist for each of
students :
1. Is unimportant or redundant information left
our of the summary?
2. Are important events and ideas stated?
3. Do they state the author’s main idea and
supporting details?
- Paper, highlighter, and pencil for
each student
- Student copies
of Earthquake! and Mountain
Lions
Procedures
1.
“We have successfully learned to become fluent readers, but we
are one
step away from become expert readers who read to learn new information. When your reading to learn (which you do
every time you read) you have to use comprehension skills to remember
the
information an author is telling you in their writing.
Comprehension aides us in understanding what
we are reading, tells us what is happening in a story, or the
information being
told in an article, and allows us to remember that information. Summarizing is a strategy we all use to
comprehend what we are reading. When you
summarize you are finding the main idea and the details that support it
in your
story or article.”
2.
“We have practiced how to read orally, or out loud to a group or
partner.
3.
“We use three rules, or ask ourselves three questions, when we
summarize
text. (Write the rules on the board)
They are: 1. Get rid of any unnecessary or repeated information. 2.
Pick out
the most important items or events. 3. Write a statement that covers
everything
the author is trying to say about the topic.
To summarize a text, ask yourself if you have completed our
three
rules. Have you gotten rid on
unnecessary or repeated information?
Have you pick out the most important events?
And lastly, have you created a statement
which explains everything the author is trying to say?”
Read “What’s
Going on Here? Animal Rascals” from the
National Geographic
Kids website (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0404/main.html) “I am now going to use my summarization rules
to help me better comprehend what I have just read.
First I will get rid of information that is
not really important, like it wasn’t really important that Peggy
Williams was
watching TV the night the raccoon crawled into her house.
So I will cross that information out in my
article. Next I will look for important
events, like the cat’s water dish was muddy because raccoons wash off
their
food before eating it. I will highlight
this information in my article. Lastly,
I will make a sentence which tries to cover everything the author was
trying to
say in their article. Raccoons find most
of the food in the water, like crayfish and frogs, which is why they
are used
to washing their food before eating it, leaving Peggy Williams cat bowl
muddy.”
4.
“Let’s practice summarizing together.”
Give a copy of “Earthquake!
Getting Ready” from the National
Geographic Kids website (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0403/main.html). Read the paragraph as a class and work
through together to summarize it using our summarization rules.
5. Pass
out a copy of “Mountain Lions, Face to
Face” from National Geographic Kids website (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0401/main.html). Give a brief article talk.
Have you ever imagined what it would be like
to be face to face with a mountain lion?
Adults and children all over the world have come feet away from
some of
the most dangerous animals. What would
you do?
6. Instruct
the student to read silently using a
pencil to cross through unimportant information (rule #1) and highlight
important events (rule #2).
7. For
assessment collective the partner
sentences using the following summarization checklist.
- Is unimportant or redundant information left
our of the
summary?
- Are important events and ideas stated?
- Do they state the author’s main idea and
supporting
details?
References
Flemming, Nell. 1, 2,
3…A Summary! http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/connect/flemingrl.html
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