Ready to Summarize
Rationale:
When students
learn to read, it is
very important to also teach comprehension, so students can understand
and
recall the information read in any text.
There are several comprehension strategies students can learn to
help
them understand this process. One
strategy, summarization, helps students find and remember the most
important
information in a text through a series of five steps: delete
unimportant information, delete repeated information, substitute easy
terms for
lists of items, substitute a series of events with one easy action
term, and
select/ invent a topic sentence. This
lesson will teach students how to summarize their reading with the help
of
these steps. Once students learn how to
use these steps, they will be able to summarize any text.
Materials:
Chalk and Chalkboard
Copy of Your Amazing Brain from
National Geographic Kid News (copies for
each child)
Copy of The Secret Language of
Dolphins from National Geographic Kid News
(copies for each child)
Highlighters for teacher and each
student
Paper
Pencils
Checklist
Overhead project and transparency
of article (Your Amazing Brain)
Procedure:
1. The teacher will begin the lesson
by reviewing how to read silently. Say, “Can anyone tell me what
it means
to read silently? Very good, it is when we read the words with
our eyes
without saying anything with our mouths. Now, here’s a harder
question. Why is it good for us to read silently? That’s
right; it
helps us remember what we read. Today we are going to practice
reading
silently and learn how to summarize what we read, so we comprehend the
text we
read.”
2. The teacher will discuss what it means
to summarize a story
and the steps it takes to create a summary. Say, “Can anyone tell
me what
it means to summarize a story? (Allow time for the students to
respond)
When we summarize a story it means we give a shorter version of the
story that only
tells the most important parts. There are five steps for us to
follow when
we are summarizing a story. I will explain the steps and then you
can
practice summarizing on your own.” The teacher will then explain
the 5
basic steps to the students and write them on the board so they can
refer back
to them. “These are the five steps that will help us summarize
information we read: first we get rid of any unimportant
information,
then we delete repeated information, substitute easy terms for lists of
items,
substitute a series of events with one action term that can be easily
remembered, and finally we select or create a topic sentence.”
3. Say, “Now each of you is going to get a
copy of a passage
entitled Your Amazing Brain. The
article is about your brain: how it
functions, what it is made up of, and many interesting facts. How many neurons do you think might be in
your brain? We will have to read this
article to find out all about the brain. Now, I want each of you
to read
the article silently. When you are done with the reading, close
your packet
and turn it over so I know you are finished reading.”
4. “We are going to read another article
in a few minutes, but
right now I am going to show you how to use these five steps in order
to create
a summary of what we just read.” (Put the passage on the overhead
projector. Open it to the first page) “I am going to read the first
page out
loud and as I read I am going to highlight the most important
information. Then, I am going to come up with a summary
incorporating the
rest of the steps.” (Model how to create a summary of the first
page and
discuss in detail how you came up with your summary. Say, “The
passage
begins with a description of the brain and its jobs.
I will highlight the section that tells how
much the brain weighs and what the brain allows us to do.
We want to highlight the parts we want to
remember and what is interesting.” The
teacher will continue to demonstrate how to summarize the first page of
the
article.)
5. Give each student a highlighter.
Say, “Now you are
going to summarize the rest of the article. I want you to
highlight the
important information like I did and be sure to use all five steps to
create
your summary. When you are finished highlighting, write your
summary on a
piece of paper.” (While the students are working, the teacher
should walk
around and guide them. When everyone is finished, discuss what
the
students came up with and how they used the five steps to develop their
summary.)
Assessment:
Pass out the second article to the
students and provide a book talk (“This next article is about dolphins
and the
secret language they use. Have you ever
heard about this secret language? We
will have to read the article to find out what it is and how the
dolphins use
it.”) Have the students read the entire
second article silently. The students
will then write a summary based on the five steps after they have
finished
reading. The students will turn in their summary and the teacher
will use
a checklist to decide whether or not they used the five steps in the
summarizing
process.
Sample Checklist:
1. Removed
unimportant/ repeated information
Yes
O No O
2. Topic sentence given
Yes
O No O
3. Only
used main points
Yes O No O
4. Created
easy terms to classify items
Yes O No O
References:
Pressley, M., C.J. Johnson, S.
Symons, J.A. McGoldrick, and J.A. Kurity (1989) Strategies that
Improve
Children’s Memory and Comprehension od Text. The Elementary
School
Journal, 90, 3-32.
“The Secret Language of Dolphins.” Boyer, Crispin. National Geographic Kids Magazine. November 25, 2007. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Dolphin-language
Ward, Jenna. Chunks, Chunks and more Chunks. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/constr/wardrl.html
“Your Amazing Brain.” Richards, Douglas A. National Geographic Kids Magazine. November 25, 2007. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/SpaceScience/Brain