Sum it up!
Reading to Learn
Rational: As students go through school, they learn how to
read and strategies on becoming a better reader. The main reason why we read is
to understand what we are reading, also known as comprehension. One strategy
that will help us understand what we are reading is summarization. This lesson
will teach students how to pick out the important information and delete
unnecessary information in order to summarize a text.
Materials:
"Healthy Eating article"[per child]
"Health and Wellness" article [per child]
Pencil [per child]
Paper [per child]
Highlighter [per child]
Assessment check sheet [per child-See below]
Healthy Eating article for teacher to put on the document
camera
Expo marker for whiteboard
Procedures:
The teacher will say, "Today we are going to learn about
summarization. Can anyone tell me what they think summarization means? (Teacher
should allow allotted time for students to answer the question) "Correct! When
we summarize a text, it means that we pick out the important ideas of a story
and tell about them in our own words. Only the major ideas from the story should
be mentioned in your summary, but the les important details should be left out."
2."We are going to practice now with the sample article. I
want you all to highlight the main ideas in the story with your highlighter and
cross out unimportant details in the passage with you pencil." Teacher will
model how to pick out the important details and how to decide what is
unnecessary information. Teacher will then give students time to dissect their
sample passages. Then the teacher will ask the class, "What did you highlight in
your passage? What information was not important? Did you highlight or cross out
more information in the article?"
3. Ask class," Why do you all think that summaries are so
important when you are reading? Have any of you ever summarized any of your
reading before? Good Answers! Summarization helps us to better understand what
we just read. Now, we are going to practice summarizing a text, Healthy Eating
by American Chemical Society. This article stresses what kinds of foods you
should or should not be eating. It helps you to understand why some foods are
bad for you and why some foods are really good for you.
4."As you read the article to yourselves, I want each of
you to pay close attention to what you are reading. After you read the story go
back and cross out any information that you consider unnecessary and highlight
the main ideas of the article. After you finish reading the article, I want you
to write a summary of what you have read about in about 5 sentences. Please
write in complete sentence. Only write about the key points, not the unnecessary
information. Remember when we summarize, we write what we have read in our own
words. Now would be a great time to
introduce some vocabulary words. Some of the words I would introduce would be
calcium, saturated fat, unsaturated fat, carbohydrate.
5 Teacher will pass out, "Healthy Eating" article to the
class. Students will have 15-20 minutes to read and summarize the article.
6. "Now that you all have had time to read and summarize
the story, we are all going to talk about the main points of the article that
some of you have come up with. I will write down the key points of the article
that some of you have come up with. I will write down the key points of the
article as I call on some of you to read your summaries aloud." (Some answers
should be something like these examples: Our bodies need carbohydrates but not
to many of them. Butter is a saturated fat and we should not eat too much of it.
Calcium helps us to have strong bones and teeth.) "Those are all such great
answers!"
7. Now that we have practiced summarizing a passage
together, I am going to pass out one more articles, "Health and Wellness". This
article gives us information on how to be healthy and stay well. I want you to
write down at least four main ideas that you read in this article. What are some
of the things we need to remember as we are summarizing the text? Great Answers!
You should only write the important details and key points in the story. After
you have finished summarizing the article, I will take up your papers. (Teacher
will use checklist to make sure that students know how to highlight main ideas
and cross out unnecessary information. The sentences the students write will
also be sure for a classroom grade.)
References:
"Healthy Eating" was written by American Chemical Society
and can be found at:
http://portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/education/whatischemistry/scienceforkids/articles/CSTA_015158
"Health and Wellness" was written by Vice Admiral Richard
H. Carmona and can be found at:
http://portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/education/whatischemistry/scienceforkids/articles/CSTA_015157
McMillan, Mery "Summarization is a piece of cake" can be
found at:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/mcmillanrl.htm
Assessment Check sheet:
Student's Name: __________________________________
Date_________
Yes No
___ ___ Highlighted Key Information
___ ___ crossed out unnecessary Information
___ ___ wrote a sentence summarizing the most important parts of the text