SUMMARIZING SUPERSTARS!
Reading to Learn
Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to teach children a way to comprehend what
they are reading. Students need to be able to pick out certain sentences that
are important as well as grasping the main idea of the passage. Today, students
will be taught to summarize the important information in the given story.
Also, they will learn how to use a series of events to create a topic sentence.
After learning how to use these skills students will be on their way to becoming
better readers.
Materials:
Paper
Pencil
Markers
Chart paper
Individual pieces of poster board
Story to give the children
Checklist written on chart paper
Copies of the story of Goldilocks and the
Three Bears
Procedures:
1. "Today, we are going to be talking about summarizing. Can anybody tell me
what the word summarizing means?" Give the students opportunities to explain.
"Summarizing means to take out important parts of a story or article, put them
together, and form a summary. Can anyone give me an example of a summary of a
story you have read lately? Has anyone ever had to summarize a story before?"
Allow the children to answer. These questions introduce the lesson about
summarizing.
2. "We are going to be reading and summarizing 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'.
But first there are a few words in this story that may be difficult for you to
understand. The first word is porridge. Porridge is a type of food that is like
oatmeal, it is made from oats, milk, and water. So porridge is not what bears
eat! Porridge is what humans eat! Is porridge more like a soup or a cereal? Is
porridge more like something animals eat or humans eat?" I will write part of a
sentence up on the board and have the children raise their hands to complete the
sentence in their own words. Write "The porridge tasted…" on the board. Have the
students give me a few examples, which I will write on the board.
3. "Part of summarizing a story is reading alone, and asking yourself questions
quietly about what you are reading as you read. I am going to give you an
example of how I summarize while I read a story. I am going to read a short
story aloud to you and as I am reading I am going to ask myself: 'What is this
story about? What are some main facts?'" Now give an example summary of the
short story to the students. "Now I want you to read
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
silently to yourself, while you are reading I want you to practice summarizing
the story and finding the main points in the story."
Booktalk (do this before the students begin reading): "Goldilocks lives in the
woods. One day she decides to go for a walk in the woods and comes upon a house.
She knocks and knocks and no one answers. The door is unlocked so she decides to
walk in the house. You are going to have to read the rest of the story to find
out what happens to Goldilocks!"
"Remember, we are reading silently so we should not hear any talking!"
4. Allow everyone to finish his or her reading. "Now that we have read the story
we are going to focus on summarizing it. There are six important steps to
summarizing that can help you come up with a great summary." Have the steps
written on paper big enough for all of the students to see.
The steps are:
1. Delete unimportant information
2. Delete repeated information.
3. Substitute easy words for lists of items.
4. Add a series of events with an easy action term.
5. Select a topic.
6. Invent a topic sentence if there is not one already.
"Can anyone tell me who the main characters in the story are?" Allow the
children to raise hands and give answers.
"Can anyone tell me the setting of the story?" Allow the children to raise hands
and give answers.
"Can anyone give me a problem that was encountered in the story?" Allow the
children to raise hands and give answers.
"Can anyone give me a resolution to the problem in the story?" Allow the
children to raise hands and give answers.
"Can anyone give an example of a main topic of the story?" Allow the children to
raise hands and give examples.
"Can anyone invent a topic sentence in the story?" Allow the children to raise
hands and give examples.
5. "We are now going to discuss what we read in the story and we are going to
put the main points into a web diagram. Don't forget to look at the summary
checklist that we just went over in order to help you. Remember that the main
topic goes in the middle circle of the web diagram. What is the main topic of
this story?" Allow the children to raise their hands to give main topics. Write
the main topic in the center circle (Goldilocks is in the bear's house). "Who
can now give me a main detail from the story?" Record their comments on the web.
Don't forget that we can use this web when we are writing our summary. We can
use each idea from the circles as sentences in our summary.
6. "Now I want you to create your own summary of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears with
your neighbor. Use the ideas that we put in the web to write a summary about the
story. If you would like to draw pictures when you finish your writing you are
more than welcome to. I will be walking around the room if anyone has any
questions. Once you are finished we will share our summaries with the class."
7. Assessment: To assess the students understanding of story mapping I will
monitor them as they work together on their paragraphs. I will also ask the
students questions about the story they read to make sure that they comprehend
the text (I will do this as I am walking around the room). They will each turn
in a brief outline from the story, and I will check to make sure that they only
mentioned the important elements in the story, and that they have a topic
sentence.
References:
DLTK's Crafts for Kids. The Story of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/goldilocks_story.htm
Nobles, Brittney. "Super Summarizers!"
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/invitations/noblesrl.htm