Mary Elizabeth Sandlin
Let's Get it Together!
Reading to Learn
Rationale:
Children need to learn strategies
that will
help reading for comprehension. Children must be able to focus on
the
main ideas of the passage in order to increase comprehension.
Summarizing
is one strategy that children can use to increase comprehension.
Explicit
instruction is needed when children are learning how to comprehend what
they
are reading. They need to be taught about to ignore or eliminate
the not
so important facts and focus on the important main facts of the story.
They should
learn about to create a topic sentence by comprehending what they read.
If
these strategies are implemented, children will be able to summarize
and
comprehend what they are reading.
Materials:
·
Pencil
·
Paper
·
Chart
paper
·
12"
by 12" squares on poster board
·
Copies
of "The Truth Behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" for
each student
By Deborah
Underwood
National
Geographic Kids Magazine
September 08, 2006
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2006/09/piratestwo.html
·
Checklist
for
each student- with following:
1.
Delete unimportant information
2.
Delete repeated information
3.
Substitute easy words for lists of items
4.
Add a series of events with an easy action term
5.
Select a topic
6.
Invent a topic sentence if there is already not one
Procedures:
1.
Introduce
the lesson by explaining what
summarizing is and why it is important when you read. Ask the
class, Can
anyone tell me what it means to summarize? Explain to them that
summarizing means when you take out the main points and put it in a
summary.
A summary will describe the main points in the text. When you are
reading
a story to summarize you take out the non important facts and just
focus on the
important facts. Can anyone give me an example summary of a story they
have
recently read? Give the students a chance to respond. Now I will
give you
all an example summary of a book we have just read. (Summarize a story
that has
been recently read in class) Ask the class "Have any of you tried
to
summarize a story before?" Well today we are going to be learning how
to
summarize.
2.
Today
we will be reading silently and summarizing what
we read. Today we are going to read an article about
Pirates. The
article is called "The Truth Behind Pirates
of
the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" Can anyone guess what this
article
might be about? (Give students a chance to respond) Now we are
going to
read a little part of the article and find some important points. So,
let's
makes sure to pay attention while reading. Give a book talk before
reading: "Do pirates really bury their
treasure? Did
woman really dress as men? You'll have to read the rest of the
article to
find out these interesting facts about real pirates". Have the
students read the article to themselves. Now lets discuss together some
of the
important facts of what we just read. This is will help us
summarize our
story. Teacher and students discuss the article they read.
3.
Okay,
now that you have read the article and know what
summarizing means, we can learn the six steps of summarizing. (Record
on chart
paper)
1. Delete unimportant
information.
2. Delete repeated information.
3. Substitute easy words for lists of items.
4. Add a series of events with an easy action term.
5. Select a topic.
6.
Invent a topic sentence if there is not one.
It is
important to
ignore the unimportant information and just concentrate on the
important
points. . This will help us to focus on the main points of the
article. . For example, when we are reading about pirates we
may want
to remember what kind of pirates they are talking about because those
are the
key points in the story.
4.
Let's
talk about what you read in the article together.
I am going to draw a web on my poster. "A web helps us see what the
main
points are in our story." Remember to look at the summary checklist on
our
other chart. Where do I put the main topic on our web? (the
middle)
Very good! What should I put in the middle of the web? (The Truth Behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead
Man's Chest")
Very nice! Who can give me a main point from the article? Call
upon the
students and record their comments on the web. Explain to the
students
that we should be able to use the web to summarize the article.
5.
Now I
will have the children work in groups of
2. Pass out the poster board squares, individual checklists, and
markers
to each pair of students. "A wonderful way to help us learn to
summarize is by creating a web just like the one we did together.
Can
anyone tell me how to begin the web? Great! We place the
topic of
the article in the center of our posters. Then I want you to
write facts
about the article you just read. I will be walking around to see if
anyone
needs help". Make sure you use the checklist we wrote down to help you
summarize the article.
Assessment:
In order to assess the
children understands of the topic I will walk around the room as they
work
together on the web. I will compare their checklists with their
webs. They will also individually write a brief summary paragraph
based
on their web from the article. That will help the teacher see if
the
student is able to ignore the non important information. I will ask
questions
about the article to the students, such as -
·
What
did the pirates display in the movie that is not true to pirates in
real life?
·
Using
evidence from the article, do you think the movie was accurate to real
pirate
life? Explain why or why not.
Reference:
National
Geographic Explorer
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/kids/2006/09/piratestwo.html
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/fainrl.html