Digging through the mess to find the treasure

Reading to Learn

Catherine Moore

Rationale:

 Reading is on e of the most important parts of a children’s education.  Without reading, it would be very difficult for children to learn.  Therefore, a very important part of learning to read is learning to comprehend and summarize what you are reading.  During this lesson we are going to learn how to summarize passages.

Materials: 

A variety of books for the children to choose from to read.  Example: Informational texts

One poster with a paragraph written on it:

~Matt was cooking a pie.  He realized, while he was cooking, that he did not have enough eggs.  Matt went to his neighbors and asked them for an egg.  They said they did not have any.  Then, matt went to his other neighbor’s house and asked for an egg.  They also, said no.  Matt finally had to get into his car and drive to the store to get some eggs.

Paper and Pencils

Procedures:

1. Ask the children if they can tell you why reading is so important.  Then explain to them that without reading it would be a lot harder to learn things.  Tell them; however, when you read it is very important to learn how to summarize in order to better remember what you read.  For instance, if you were watching a movie and kept track of everything little and big that happened it would be a lot harder and take a lot more time to retell the story to someone.  That is why when reading you have to find information that is important to remember.
2. Tell them we are going to practice summarizing.  Shoe the students a paragraph on a poster.  Ask the children to read the poster silently while you read it out loud.  Tell them to reread it, but this time look for the important information to remember.
3. Teacher will model to the students how to summarize the passage.  Tell the students to look for these four questions; who, what where, and why. Ask the children who is this passage about? Matt.  What is Matt doing? He needs an egg.  Where is matt?  Cooking.  Why does matt need an egg?  Because he is cooking. 
4. Ask the children if someone can raise their hands and tell me what they think is the summary of this passage?  Discuss the answer with class. Then, explain to them that the most important thing to remember is that Matt was cooking and needed an egg and he had to go to the store to get some. 
5. Tell the children to select from a variety of books, already provided.  Tell them to have them partner up and tell each other what it was about.

Evaluation:  The children will turn in their summaries on the books.

Reference: Reading Genie Web cite. http://www.auburn.ede/~murraba/chall/chancerl.html.  Auburn University. 2003

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