Something to Remember!


By: Ashley Cooke

Reading to Learn 

 

Rationale: Learning to read is very important in schools but learning to summarize what you are reading is just as important! Being able to summarize what you read in a book means that you can remember what you read. You can retell the events that happened and are able to tell others about it. Remembering what you read allows you to not only enjoy your story but it allows you to share what you read to others.

Materials:

1.     Copies of the article ãHurricane Forecast 2009: 6 Expected in ÎAverageâ Seasonä written by Willie Drye. Found at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090407-hurricane-forecast.html

2.     Chart with the rules of summarization

1.     Remove any unnecessary information

2.     Remove any information that has already been said

3.     Select a topic

4.     Create a topic sentence if one isnât already provided

5.     Substitute easy words for long important sentences

3.     Chart with paragraph of ãSpring Peepersä on it. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Spring-peepers

It will say: ãSpring peepers are tan and brown with dark lines that look like an X on their backs. They grow to about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) in length, and have large toe pads that act as suction cups for climbing. They are nocturnal creatures so they hide from their prey during the day and come out at night. When the warm weather arrives the male frogs attract others by ãsingingä in their deepest voice. This sound can be heard from a mile away. When a male and female frog mate they hide their eggs in water and live in the forest for the rest of the year. They return when the warm weather arrives again.ä

4.     Dry erase board with marker

5.     Pencil and paper for each student

6.     Highlighter for each student

7.     Black marker for each student

8.     Summarization checklist for each student

Did the student:

Yes

No

Remove any unnecessary information?

 

 

Remove any information that had already been said?

 

 

Substitute easy words for long important sentences

 

 

 

Select a topic?

 

 

Create a topic sentence if there wasnât already one?

 

 

 

Procedures:

1.     Say: ãToday we are going to learn a new strategy to help us improve our comprehension skills. We are going to be practicing what is called summarization. Does anyone know what summarization is?ä  ãYes, summarization is when you pick out the most important parts or ideas from the story.ä

2.     Review the fluency strategies with the students. Say: ãOkay boys and girls, do you remember what we do when we come to a word we canât read?ä ãThatâs right! We crosscheck so I am going to crosscheck when I read this sentence.ä (write the sentence, the girl gave me a grape, on the board). The girl gav me a grap. Now I can use my crosschecking  skills to make sure the sentence doesnât make sense. Now I reread the sentence as, the girl gave me a grape.ä

3.     Put on the board the chart with the summarization rules. Say, ãWe are going to go over some rules for summarization to help us comprehend better.ä Read the rules out loud to them. Now put up the chart with the paragraph from the article, ãSpring Peepersä on it. Say, ãNow I want you all to read this paragraph from the article, ãSpring Peepersä silently to yourself.ä Give them about 10 minutes to read the article then say, ãNow I am going to model how to summarize this article.

4.     ãI am going to read the paragraph from the article, ÎSpring Peepersâ so everyone look at the board.ä ãSpring peepers are tan and brown with dark lines that look like an X on their backs. They grow to about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) in length, and have large toe pads that act as suction cups for climbing.  They are nocturnal creatures so they hide from their prey during the day and come out at night. When the warm weather arrives the male frogs attract others by ãsingingä in their deepest voice. This sound can be heard from a mile away. When a male and female frog mate they hide their eggs in water and live in the forest for the rest of the year. They return when the warm weather arrives again.ä ãThe first rule says we need to remove any unnecessary information from the article.ä ãSo I am going to cross out with my black marker ÎThey grow to about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) in length, and have large toe pads that act as suction cups for climbing.ä Now our 2nd rule says we need to remove any information that has already been said so now I will cross out Îreturn when the warm weather arrivesâ because we already found out that they come around when the weather gets warm. Our 3rd rule says that we need to substitute easy words for long important sentences so I am going to highlight the sentence ÎSpring peepers are tan and brown with dark lines that look like an X on their backsâ, ÎWhen the warm weather arrives the male frogs attract others by ãsingingä in their deepest voiceâ and ÎThey are nocturnal creatures so they hide from their prey during the day and come out at nightâ.ä ãThese are the important ideas from the paragraph.ä ãOur next rule says we need to select a topic which is spring peepers. Now our last rule says we need to create a topic sentence so my topic sentence will be ÎSpring peepers are nocturnal, tan and brown creatures with dark lines that look like and X on their backs who sing in a deep voice during the warm weather to attract other frogs.â This is how I would summarize this paragraph.ä

5.     Pass out a copy of the article, ãHurricane Forecast 2009: 6 Expected in ÎAverageâ Seasonä to each student. Say, ãI have given each of you a copy of the article, ãHurricane Forecast 2009: 6 Expected in ÎAverageâ Seasonâ.ä ãI want you to read this article silently to yourself applying the summarization rules to summarize this article.ä I will give a book talk about the article. ãOnly 6 hurricanes are predicted to form this summer making the hurricane season of summer 2009 a little less active than others.ä ã12 tropical storms are predicted to form in the Atlantic Basin, which is less than the average of 17 storms that were seen in the past 5 years.ä Of those 12 storms, only 6 will develop into hurricanes.ä ãLetâs read more of this article to find out more about these special 6 hurricanes.ä ãRemember to use your black markers to cross out any unnecessary information, and use your highlighters to mark the important parts of the article.ä ãOnce you have done this combine all of your important information into a topic sentence.ä ãAfter everyone has completed their summarizations we will share them with the rest of the class.ä

Assessment:

1.     For the assessment use the summarization checklist listed above to evaluate the studentsâ summarizations. Check to make sure that they have removed all of the unnecessary information and compacted all of the important information into one topic sentence. I will also be asking questions about the articles we read to make sure they are comprehending and understanding what we have read. These questions will be like, how many of the tropical storms are predicted to turn into hurricanes? And, what is the previous average number of tropical storms that were seen in the past 5 years?

References:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/sightings/liphamrl.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090407-hurricane-forecast.html

Return to site index

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Spring-peepers

National Geographic for Kids (2008). Spring Peepers.