Summarize This!
Reading to Learn
Rationale: To become a
successful and efficient reader, children must have the skills to
comprehend what they read. For a beginning reader to reach this goal, it is
necessary to learn and practice summarization skills to identify and
recall main ideas in a reading. When students know how to
properly summarize a passage they are able to comprehend the meaning of
it better. Through this lesson, students will be able to summarize
passages by picking out important information, eliminating trivial
details, and organizing the main points into a main idea.
Materials:
*Highlighter for each
student
*Overhead Transparency
of National Geographic Article: "Slow Down for Calvin The Right Whale"
*Overhead projector
*Vis-a-vis Marker
*Printed copy of
National Geographic Article: "Slow Down for Calvin The Right Whale" for
each student
*Lined paper for each
student
*Summarizing poster with
3 points:
1.Pick out the most
important information
2.Get rid of unnecessary
information.
3.Write one to two
sentences that include only the important information drawn from the
passage
*Assessment Checklist:
|
Yes or No |
Task |
|
|
Picked out most
important information |
|
|
Ignored
unnecessary information |
|
|
Created one-two
sentence summary with important information |
Procedure:
1.SAY: "Today, we are
going to learn an important tool that will make us better readers. It
is summarization. Does anyone know what that means?" Allow students to
make guesses. "Well, summarization is the process of shrinking a
passage into a sentence or two by taking out the unimportant parts and
picking out the main facts that readers need to understand the story."
2.SAY: 'Let practice
summarizing together." Hand each student a printed copy of the article,
"Slow Down for Calvin the Right Whale", and a highlighter. Put the
transparency of the article on the overhead.
3.SAY: "Lets read the
first paragraph and try to summarize it." Teacher reads aloud the
passage to students:
In 1992, the mother of a North Atlantic
right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) was hit and killed by a ship
in Canada's Bay of Fundy. Researchers studying these whales named
the 8-month-old baby Calvin because they knew that in order for it to
survive, it would need to be feisty, like the character in the cartoon
strip Calvin and Hobbes.
SAY: "Now let's look at
the steps on our summarizing poster. First, I need to pick out the most
important information." Underline important information: In 1992, mom
of right whale, killed by a ship, baby survived, feisty like character
in cartoon, Calvin and Hobbes. SAY: "Now that I have underlined the
important information and ignored the unimportant parts, now I need to
create a sentence about the summary. Let's try this: "In 1992, a mom of
a right whale was killed by a ship, but her baby survived and was named
Calvin, because he was as feisty as the character in the cartoon,
Calvin and Hobbes."
4.SAY: "See, instead of
writing two long sentences, I wrote one sentence that told me the same
important information. Let's try the next paragraph together. Read the
next paragraph silently to yourselves, mark out the unimportant
information and highlight the important information. Once you have
finished, we will work together to create a summary." Give students
time to read and highlight.
5.SAY: "What were some
important things that you highlighted?" Review their answers and circle
good answers on the transparency. SAY: "Now that we have the important
facts, let's make a summary sentence. Any ideas?" Work with students to
create a summary.
6.SAY: "Now, on your
own, I want you to read the last two paragraphs in the article and
create a one- two sentence summary. Remember to highlight your
important passages, cross out the unimportant passages and write your
summary on a sheet of paper. Turn in your summary stapled to your
highlighted paper. "
Assessment: Students
will be assessed on their summarization sentences. I will use a
checklist to assess their progress and to determine if any students
need further help and practice with this skill.
References:
Fox, Catherine Clark. "Slow
Down for Calvin the Right Whale." National Geographic Kids.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Slowdownforcalvin
Gluckman, Amanda. "Long Story
Short".
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/gluckmanrl.html