Reading to Learn
Lindsay Bailey
Rationale: Children will learn to summarize text they are reading. This lesson will teach students how to summarize what they are reading and ultimately learn how to find meaning of what they have read.
Materials: Non-fiction book (such as a science or history book-ex. National Geographic Society's Science book), copies of text for each child, highlighter fir each child, markers, paper, pencil
Procedure:
1. I will begin the lesson
by explaining to children what it means to summarize text. "When you are
summarizing a text, you must create a shorter version of what you read.
This means you take out any information that is not important or that is
repeated in the text. For example, if I read a passage such as I went to
the lake. I rode a boat. The boat was red. I could summarize the passage
by saying I rode a red boat at the lake. Do you see how I used the important
information from the passage and made a shorter sentence? Today we are
going to be summarizing just like I just did."
2. I will have students get
out their textbook and silently read the assigned passage (this will depend
on which lesson you are on). "I want everyone to read p. 32-35 silently.
This is about fossils. After you have finished, be thinking about some
of the important points in the story."
3. After the children have
finished reading the assigned pages, I will pass out copies of the text
they just read. "We are now going to summarize what we just finished reading.
On the copy of the text I just gave you and highlight all the main ideas
or pieces of information you feel are important." We will then discuss
each of these facts as a class. "Next, I want you to take your marker and
mark through all of the information you don't feel is important. This is
the information that the author included in the text but does not need
to be put in our summary."
4. "Now that we have finished
highlighting and marking, I want you to write what is left on a blank piece
of paper. Make sure you leave out all the information you marked out."
5. After all students are
finished, allow some students to read their summaries to the class. Encourage
children to listen and see if their summary is similar to the one being
read.
Assessment: In order to assess summarization skills I will pass out another passage for the children to read silently. They will then summarize the passage on their own. I will then check over them to make sure they included the main ideas of the story and left out information that is irrelevant. This will demonstrate an understanding of summarization.
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