Tigers and
Apes and Bugs, Oh
My! Summarizing with Science
Reading to
Learn
Rationale:
Once students
become fluent
readers, the next step is comprehension. In order to comprehend,
students must
be able to read and summarize a story. When summarizing,
students should be
able to identify the most important parts of a text. This lesson
will teach
students how to summarize by teacher modeling and practice with
an
informational article.
Materials:
SMART
board file with article "Tigers Cuddle with Apes"
Highlighters
for each student
Article
for students "Green Invaders"
Blank
notebook paper for students' summaries
Assessment
checklist for each student:
Did
student highlight important details in blue and not important details
in
green?
Did
student write a summary that includes the important details?
Did
the summary include 1 or more complete sentence(s)?
Did
the summary include key details and omit trivial details?
Procedure:
1.
"Okay boys
and girls,
now that we are becoming fluent readers, we are going to work on
learning how
to comprehend. We will do this by learning how to summarize.
Summarizing means
that we will read an article and then write a few sentences
containing only the
important information about the topic, leaving the details we do
not need out."
2.
"Okay class,
first I am
going to read this article, "Tigers Cuddle with Apes," on the
SMART
board out loud, and then we will go back and highlight the
important details
together. If we come across an unfamiliar word, we will look it
up." Read
article out loud, looking up any unfamiliar words. Once we are
finished, I will
guide students to the parts of the article that should be
highlighted. "Can
someone raise their hand and tell us some phrases they think
should be
highlighted? Great job!"
3.
"Good job
class. These
parts that we have highlighted will be the main information we
use when writing
our summary." I will now model how to put the sentences together
to make a
brief summary.
4.
"Now that you
all know
how to make a summary, you are going to practice on your own
with this article,
"Green Invaders." This article is about how we can protect
native
plants. Before we start reading, let's go over an unfamiliar
word. An
entomologist is a person who studies bugs."
5.
"After you
finish
reading, go back through and highlight the important details in
blue and not
important details in green. Then, write a summary of the article
combining your
details in blue."
6.
Assessment: I
will take up
the students' articles and summaries and evaluate them according
to the
checklist above.
Ashley
Buckelew. Look Who's Summarizing! http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/journeys/buckelewrl.html
"Tigers
Cuddle with Apes." Aline Alexander Newman. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/animalsnature/tigers-cuddle-with-orangutans/
"Green Invaders." Catherine Clarke
Fox.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/invasive-plants/