Summing It Up Can Be Fun!!
Lesson on
Summarization
By: Margaret
Beason
Rationale: The
main goal of reading is comprehension. Students can use many
strategies
to comprehend written text. One of the most important strategies
for
children to learn is summarization. Summarization can be defined
as
finding the most important information from a reading. To
effectively
summarize a text, students must follow several rules identify main
information,
delete trivial and redundant information, and relate main and
supporting
ideas. It is
important for
children to be able to locate the most important information in a text. In this lesson, students will be able to
effectively summarize an article from the Ranger
Rick magazine.
Materials:
Procedures:
1. Introduce the
lesson by explaining what it means to
summarize a text. “Since we have all had plenty of practice
sounding out
words and recognizing words from memory, we are going to practice on
understanding what we read. Understanding what we read is very
important. It helps us understand what happens in a story, and it
helps
us relate the story to our own lives. We are going to practice
summarizing an article. Summarizing means to find the most
important
information in a story. Stories contain a lot of information, and
only
some of it – the most important parts – help us understand what happens. Stories contain a lot of information and it
is essential that we know how to pick out the important statements from
the
story.” Today we are going to learn
how to summarize an article.
2.
Before we
practice summarizing we are going to review
how to read silently and then introduce the article to the students. This article is about a panda bear named
Xiao Pan, and you’ll have to read the article to find out all sorts of
important information about Xiao Pan. First before we start
reading,
I would like to review how to read silently. Watch me as I read
silently.”
I will read the first paragraph of the article to myself. “Now I
am going
to pass out the article and I would like for each of you to read the
title and
the article to yourself. I should not hear anyone making a
sound. I
want to see your eyes following along as you read.”
3.
After the
students’ finish reading the article, I will ask a couple of
comprehension
questions to make sure they are comprehending the material as they
should. These questions can be Who, What, Where, When,
and Why questions. For example, what is
this article about? (panda bear named Xiao Pan) And where was Xiao Pan
born? (
4.
The
teacher will then model to her students how to ask
the five “W” questions in order to find out what information is
important. “Ask yourselves what the story is about, who
the story is about, and find out where the story takes place.”
Questions
such as What does Xiao Pan eat? (Milk from his mother.) Why do you
think
he sleeps for so long? Where is he from? (
5.
After
each
student seems to have a clear understanding of how to ask themselves
the five “W”
questions, the teacher should assign the students to reread the article
to
practice summarizing. These students
will be asked to get out a sheet of paper and label the paper with the
categories Who, What, Where, When, and Why questions. While the
students are
reading these pages, they should be able to put the important
information into
each correct category. The teacher
will
walk around and assist as she is needed.
6. For
assessment, each student will turn in this piece of paper with the
appropriate
information in the correct category.
This will allow the teacher to check to make sure each student
has
learned the correct information to summarization. The
teacher should follow these checklist to
evaluate each student to make sure they are finding only the important
information:
·
How long does
Xiao Pan sleep a day?
·
Where in
·
Who takes care of
Xiao Pan?
·
What does Xiao
Pan’s mother give him?
Reference:
“Adventures of Xiao Pan”
Churchman, Deborah. Ranger Rick magazine. Volume 37, Number 2. Pp.30-37
Claire Dugas. “The ‘Bear’
Facts about Summarization” http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/insp/dugasrl.html
Misty Willoughby, Summing
it all up in a Nutshell. http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/openings/willoughbyrl.html
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