Three Steps to Summary
Summarization is an
essential strategy for reading comprehension. Summarization is the
ability to find the main idea of a story or a passage. When you write a
summary, you want to pick out the most important facts. The purpose of
this lesson is to teach students how to summarize by picking out the
most important ideas. The learning goal for this lesson is for students
to be able to apply a summarization strategy with three simple steps.
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Class copies of National
Geographic article Tiny Frogs Ring in Spring by Lyssa
White
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Class copies of National
Geographic article Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?
By Catherine Clarke Fox
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Notebook paper
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Highlighters
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White board and markers
1. 'Today we are
going to work on summarizing. Who can tell me what a summary is?' Allow
time for responses. 'Remember that when we read, our goal is
comprehension, which is the ability to understand the information we
are reading, and being able to summarize is a great strategy for us to
use in order to comprehend information. To summarize means to find
the main idea of the passage or story that you read. When you
write a summary, you want to pick out the most important facts. This
will help remember key details from things that we read and we can tell
our friends and families about it.'
2. 'There are three easy
steps to help you remember summarization. I will write the steps on the
board while explaining them.'
Step 1: Keep the most important
details.
Step 2: Get rid of the less
important details.
Step 3: Write it in your own
words.
3.
Pass out copies of Tiny Frogs Ring in Spring. 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.) We are going to read a short
article about some really neat frogs that can sing, and then summarize
the article together. I want you to read to yourself silently and
look for the main point of the article while I read out loud. Now,
I am going to pick out the most important details of the article and
write them on the board:
When the warmer weather arrives,
male frogs attempt to attract a mate with a spring serenade
Their peep peep peep
creates an other-worldly whistling sound that, to many, is the first
sign of spring.
The 'vocal sacs' under their
chins allow the frogs to 'sing.'
Since I now know the
important details of the article, I can summarize all of this
information in my own words:
Spring Peepers are a type of frogs that use their vocal
sacs to sing and mate in the springtime. Do you see how I took all
of that information and created my own version of it in my own words?
This is and example of what a summary is. (Teacher writes these
sentences on the board. The teacher also tells the students that
it is important to write their summary in their own words.)
4.
'Now that I have shown you how to write a summary, I am going to
let you practice summarizing by yourself. (Give each student a
copy of the article
Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?, a sheet of
notebook paper, and a highlighter.) This article is about the
importance of recycling and drinking water. First, I want you to read
the article silently to yourself. Use your highlighter to highlight the
sentences that have important details. Then, I want you to review the
information you have highlighted and decide what you think the main
idea of the article is. On your sheet of paper, I would like for you to
answer the questions that I have written on the board: What is
the title of the article? What are some important details? What
is the main idea of the article? Using these questions, write one
paragraph to summarize the article. '
5.
'Now, since everyone has completed their summary, we will all
write one big summary on the board together. Who can tell me some
important details of the article that they highlighted? What was the
main idea of the article? (Let students give their responses and pick
out most important facts students give and write on the board) Ok, now
look at your paper and the board and compare/ contrast. Is your paper
and the board similar?'
6.
For assessment, I will give students quiz on the readings. I
will assess their ability to summarize and use the three step strategy
with a checklist.
References:
Fox, Catherine Clark. Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap? National Geographic News Online, 2008.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/SpaceScience/Water-bottle-pollution
White, Lyssa.
Tiny Frogs Ring in Spring. National Geographic News
Online, 2009.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Spring-peepers
Wheeler, Emily. 'To Sum it all Up'. Auburn University Reading
Genie Website, 2004. http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/guides/wheelerrl.html