Look Who's Summarizing!
Reading to learn
Ashley Buckelew

Rationale:
Comprehension is the final goal of learning to read. To be a
successful reader children should be able to read and summarize a
story. When summarizing children should be able to identify the
important parts of texts they have read. This lesson will teach
students to identify the important parts of texts they have read.
Students will learn one strategy of summarization through presentation
of the strategy, modeling and guided practice.
Materials:
1)Poster with Summarization Rules on it:
Get
rid of any unnecessary or repeated information.
Pick
out the most important items or events.
Write a statement that covers everything the
author is trying to say about the topic.
2)
Highlighters; yellow and green (one for each student)
3)
Paper (one for each student)
4)
Pencils (one for each student)
5)
Black Markers (one for each student)
6)
Checklist: Summarization (the checklist can
be used while grading summaries and can also be used as a tool for the
students to self check their work before turning it in).
���Student
highlighted important ideas (yellow).
���Did
not highlight trivia (green).
���Summary
used 1+ complete sentences.
���Identified
topic accurately.
���Included
key details.
���Omitted
trivia.
���Captured
main idea of text.
Article
for each child ���Balding Penguin Gets
Custom Wetsuit
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Penguin-with-wetsuit
One
article for yourself -
Polar
Bears Listed as Threatened ( project on board or copy on a poster)
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Polar-bears-threatened
Procedure:
1. Say: Today we are going to talk about how to write a summary. A
summary is a brief statement that describes a longer article or story.
It talks about what the big idea of the passage is. When we write a
summary, we will only talk about the important things in the article.
We are going to practice finding the important ideas in a story and
getting rid of the describing details.
2. On the overhead, I have an article on polar bears. I am going to
read the whole article through one time to make sure I understand the
article. If there are words I do not know, I am going to decode them
and look them up if I don���t know them. Once I know and understand the
article, I am going to start looking for my information. At this point,
I would read the whole article aloud for the class. Then I would
highlight the important information in yellow and the details in green.
3. Now that I know what the important information is, I am going to
write my summary. I will write sentences using this information. Here I
will model how to write a summary while asking the students for help.
4. It is your turn to write a summary. Each of you has a copy of the
penguin article. I want you to highlight the important information, or
the big ideas, in yellow and highlight the details in green. On a piece
of paper, write a summary describing this article and then turn it into
me along with the article.
Assessment:
The students will turn in their article and summary. I can see what
information they decided was important and what was not. From that, I
can correct each individual as needed. Also, I can focus whole group
time on the areas in which the students who struggle the most in this
subject. I also will have the summary to grade. I will be able to see
if the students understand what a summary is and how to write them. I
will also use the checklist provided above for grading the summary.
References:
Balding Penguin
Gets Custom Wetsuit
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Penguin-with-wetsuit
Polar
Bears Listed as Threatened
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Polar-bears-threatened
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