Megan
Schmidt
Reading to Learn
Megan
Schmidt
Reading to Learn
Rationale:
This lesson will teach students how to summarize
the passages that they are reading and the importance of being able to
summarize. By learning how to summarize, students will be able to
cut out information that is not needed and pay closer attention to what
is important within the text they are reading. With summarization
students will be able to better comprehend the text that they read by
cutting
out unimportant information and focusing on important information.
Materials:
Printed copies of the article "Siberian Survivor"
from
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0311/articles/mainarticle.html
Printed copies of the article "Working Like a
Dog" from
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0301/articles/mainarticle.html
pencils
highlighters
Procedures:
1. Start the lesson by explaining what
summarizing
is and why it is important. "When you read passages there is
information
in there that you don't need to pay much attention to and there is very
important information that you need to focus on. When you
summarize,
you make the passage into a shorter version of what you just read by
cutting
out unimportant information and keeping the important facts. An
example
of summarizing would be if I read the following: (Before reading have
the
following sentences written on the board) 'I was hungry for
lunch.
I went to Pizza Hut. I ate pepperoni pizza there.' I could
summarize those sentences into 'I ate pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut for
lunch.' (Write the summarized sentence on the board) See how we
cut
out what was unimportant and put all of the important facts
together?
That is what we will be practicing on today."
2. Have the students read the "Siberian Survivor"
article from National Geographic Kids Online. Print copies for
each
child from the link
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0311/articles/mainarticle.html.
"Remember how we learned to silently read. Silent reading is when
we read to ourselves without moving our lips or speaking. I want
you to read this passage silently to yourself and as you read think
about
what points are important and what points are unimportant or stated
more
than once. When you are done reading think about the main facts
of
the text that are of importance."
3. Split the students up into small groups and
have the them go back through the article. "I want you to
highlight
every important point of the text that you feel needs to be included in
the summary of the article." After the students have had time to
go through and highlight what they felt was appropriate tell them, "Now
go back through with a pencil and draw a line through what you feel
could
be left out of the summary or what is stated more than once. This
will be information the author put in there but is not necessary for
our
summary."
4. Have a class discussion on what the students
thought were important points of the article and what could be left out
in a summary. Discuss why the unimportant parts of the text could
be left out and why the important points needed to be left for the
summary.
5. Have each small group write a summary on the
article using the parts that they highlighted. When each group is
done have them come up one at a time to read their summary. Each
summary should be similar.
6. For assessment print out the "Working Like
a Dog" article from National Geographic Kids Online from the following
link:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0301/articles/mainarticle.html
for each child. Have each child highlight what they feel are the
important facts for a summary in the article and cross out what can be
left out. Have them write a summary on the article and submit it
to you for assessment.
Use the following checklist to grade them
by:
1. Did they highlight the important parts
of the text?
2. Did they cross out what was
irrelevant
or unimportant?
3. Did they include all important
information without being too wordy?
4. Did they summarize in their own
words rather than copy sentence for sentence?
References: