Let’s
Sum it Up!
Reading to Learn
Rational:
As children become better and more fluent readers it is important that
they
begin to comprehend what they are reading. To remember the main
idea of
a story or paragraph, children must be able to
summarize. The goal
of this
lesson is to teach students how to summarize text. Students will follow
steps
to find the main idea and important details in what they are reading.
These
steps to summarization will help students to find meaning in the text.
Materials:
"The
Secret Language of Dolphins" by Crispin Boyer
(one per student)
"Lord of
the Forest" by Mel White (one per
student)
"Minds of
their Own" National Geographic article (for
read-aloud)
Chart
with 5 Steps to Summarization
Paper and
pencil (per student)
Procedures:
1.
Introduce the lesson by explaining the importance of
summarizing.
2.
Show
students chart of five steps.
There are five steps to summarization:
1. Pick
out important details that are necessary to the story.
2. Pick out the less important or repeated ideas and eliminate them.
3. Highlight the important and necessary details using key words.
4. Pick a topic sentence
5. Invent a topic sentence if there is none.
"These
are five steps that help up to summarize text.
Let's go through each one and talk about it. First, we should pick out
the
important details. When we read, we need to pay attention to what the
whole
story is about and remember and write down the most important things.
Secondly,
we need to weed out what isn't as important. Next, we need to look for
key
words that highlight necessary details. It is also important to pick a
topic
sentence from the text and if there isn't one, we should invent one."
3. Model the summarization rules by first reading aloud "Minds of their
Own"
by Virginia Morell. After reading, explain that summarizing
helps
you remember the important facts that were illustrated or talked about
in the article.
Ask them questions to scaffold thinking such as "What was the most
important points talked about in the article?"
"What text or points could you delete?" Then the teacher models how
to summarize the article (explaining thought processes aloud).
4. Now
divide the students into groups of three or four and
have them individually read "Lord
of the Forest" by Mel White. Once they have read the story let
them
talk among their groups, each giving a summary of the article.
Once
each student has given a summary of that article, the teacher will
model
again the summarization rules and skills. “I would summarize this
article like
this (and give your summarization of the article). Some of
the
information that I thought was least important was ____. I would delete this section because
____. The topic sentence in this article
is _____.” This shows them how to organize information in their
minds so
that they will be able to recall the important facts or information
next time.
5. Now
have each child read "The Secret Language of
Dolphins" by Cripsin Boyer. After reading, each student will write his
or
her own summary of the story and turn it in.
For
assessment:
When students hand in their work, the teacher should read over it
quickly and
have a mini-conference with that student about the summary. Once everyone has written their summary, read
some of them to the class (without disclosing the name of the
author). This will show how most summaries are worded
differently, but
show the same important facts and information.
References:
Boyer,
Crispin. "The Secret Language of
Dolphins". National Geographic Kids 2008. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Dolphin-language
Morell,
Virginia. "Minds of their
Own". National Geographic.
March 2008. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text
Styles,
Kelley. "Don’t Memorize:
Summarize!"
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/chall/stylesrl.html
White,
Mel. "Lord of the Forest".
National Geographic. Feb 2008. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/02/philippine-eagles/mel-white-text.html