Super Summarizer!
Reading to Learn
Rationale:
To become a successful and efficient reader, children must have the skills to
comprehend what they read. Students
must learn strategic skills to help them in practicing their reading
comprehension. One way students can comprehend is to summarize stories or
passages. Summarization involves steps that help students locate and remember
important information in a text. Through
this lesson, students will be able to summarize passages by picking out
important information, eliminating trivial details, and organizing the main
points into a main idea.
Materials:
-
Copy of article for each student – "Facts About Bald Eagles" (see reference)
-
Pencil for each student
-
Highlighter for each student
-
Lined paper for each student
-
Assessment checklist for each student (see below)
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Article for the teacher to put on the overhead or document camera
Procedures:
1. I will begin the lesson by explaining to the students how important it is
that we understand what we read.
Say: "Good readers are not only fluent when they read, but they also understand
what they read. This is called
comprehension (write the word
comprehension on the board).
When you comprehend something that means that you understand it.
To help you understand what you read, we are going to learn how to
summarize, or write a summary.
Summarizing helps us pick out the important parts of the passage we are
reading."
2. Say: "Who can tell me what a summary is? (wait time) A summary is a sentence
that tells the main idea. Writing
summaries is a great way to help you remember what you have read."
3. Say: "Before we begin summarizing, let's look some words we will be reading:
extinct. Extinct means something that
no longer exists. An animal or
plant that is extinct dies and no longer has any living members.
An animal or plant that is extinct would not be an animal or plant that people
see at all. Something that is
extinct would be an animal or plant that people saw at one point, but will not
see ever again.
Which one of these is more like an animal or plant that would be extinct: a
dinosaur or a dolphin? An elephant or a mammoth?
Finish this sentence: The extinct animal/plant …
Possible completion: lived many years ago but can no longer be seen today.
4. Say: "Today we are going to become summarizers! We summarize articles, texts,
and passages to make it easier to understand and to delete information that is
not helpful. There are three
important things for us to do when we summarize.
First, we delete or take out all the unimportant information.
Next, we make sure and reread the details we think are important and make
sure we did not leave out anything important.
Last, we put it together and make a statement that covers everything the
author is saying about the article, passage, or text.
Let's see if everyone remembers! What is the first step? Second step?
Third? Great!"
5. Display the first paragraph of the article "Facts About Bald Eagles".
Say: "To become great summarizers, you have to practice and follow the
three steps we talked about. Today we
are going to be reading about bald eagles.
Bald eagles are very fascinating animals.
They have a wingspan of 8 feet and can live for 35 years.
Let's read and find out more facts about the bald eagle.
This passage gives us lots of information about the bald eagle and we are
going to read it, find all the important information, and write a summary about
the passage. How would I summarize
a long and difficult passage that gives facts about bald eagles? Let me show
you!" "I'll cross out unimportant
details, then highlight important ideas and put it all into 1 sentence.
What's important?" Read the passage aloud to the students. "What the
passage is talking about, what it is, and why they did not become extinct are
all important parts of this paragraph." Cross out and highlight the parts of the
article that answer the questions you are asking yourself.
A
bald eagle's
white head may make it look bald. But actually the name comes from an old
English word, "balde," meaning white. These graceful birds have been
the national
symbol of the United
States since 1782. Bald eagles were on the
brink of extinction
because of hunting and
pollution. But
laws created almost 40 years ago have
helped protect them, and
they've made a comeback.
Say: "I crossed out the first two sentences because they did not give important
information about the bald eagle. I
highlighted bald eagle because that is what the passage is about.
I crossed out "these birds have been" because that is unimportant
information. I highlight
___________(say the highlighted area) because it gave important information
about how they almost became extinct and why they are protected now."
Summary: The bald eagle, the United State's national symbol, almost became
extinct until laws were made to protect them.
6. Say: "Let's try summarizing a paragraph together." Have one of the students
read the passage aloud to the class.
Female
bald eagles are a bit
bigger than
males. Their
bodies can be
3 feet (1
meter) long,
and their
wingspan can be 8 feet (2.4 meters) across. That's about the
distance from the floor to the ceiling!
Babies, called
eaglets, are born light
gray then turn brown. When they are
4 to 5 years old, they
develop their normal white heads and tails. In the wild, they can live to
be 35 years old or more.
After the passage has been read, ask the students:
What is the big idea (topic) of this paragraph?
Bald eagles' head and tails turn different colors
Why? Because they get older
Summary: As bald eagles get older, their feathers change colors.
7. Say: "Now I want you to practice summarizing the rest of the passage on your
own. The three steps are on the
board if you get stuck and need help."
The class will work individually reading the passage, finding important
information, and delete the other information.
When they think they have all the important information, they will write
a summary about the passage.
8. When most of the class has completed the assignment, I will collect and grade
the papers using a checklist. On
the next day, I will use the students work to teach missing concepts. "What is
wrong with this summary?"
Assessment Checklist:
Students Name: _______________________________________
Date: ___________________
Yes
No
_____
_____
Picked out the most important information
_____
_____
Deleted unnecessary information
_____
_____
Understood the information from the text/article/passage
_____
_____
Wrote a sentence(s) summarizing the most important parts of text
References:
Johnson, Ally. Super Summarizers.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/johnsonrl.htm
National Geographic Kids. Facts about Bald Eagles.
http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/sites/kids/NGS/wpf/printcreature/baldeagle.html
Bailey, Hannah. Steps to Being a Successful Summarizer.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/baileyrl.htm
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