Sensational Summaries
Rationale:
The ultimate goal of reading is to read for understand (or
comprehension). 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. This process of identifying and
recalling main ideas is called summarization. This lesson will teach
students the steps of summarization and allow them to practice
summarizing with a few interesting passages provided.
Materials:
-One Summarization Tips bookmark for each
student.
-Summarization tips (written on bookmarks):
1. Pick out a topic sentence (create one if one is not provided)
2. Pick out important facts from the passage
3. Remove information that is not very useful, or that does not back up
the topic sentences
4. Pick out repeated ideas and delete them.
-One copy of National Geographic's article "Honey Bee Mystery" per
student
-One copy of national Geographic's article "Cat Adopts Dog" per student
-Pencil, highlighter
-Paper
Procedures:
1. What do you think the word
comprehension means? Comprehend also means to understand. The main goal
of reading is to understand or comprehend what you are reading.
This is more than just reading the words on the page, but actually
understanding what the words are telling you. This is how we read
stories and information.
2. One way you can comprehend what you are reading is by
summarizing. To summarize means to recap or review what you just read.
Today we will learn how to summarize by using a few simple rules.
3. I will have created a transparency of the article and will use the
overhead projector to model to students how to summarize.
4. Follow along with me on your paper as I highlight and
cross out on my own. We will practice this one together, and then you
will practice summarizing on a different article.
5. Read the passage along with the students. Use your bookmark to help
you remember key tips to summarization. After reading the first
paragraph, ask students to read the 4 tips to themselves.
Are there any important facts? Yes! Now let's highlight
them. Highlight the important facts in the first paragraph.
Now are there any facts we can delete? Very good, cross
those out with your pencil by drawing a line through them. (The
teacher is also following directions on overhead).
Are there any repeated ideas? Mark those out too. A topic
sentence is the main idea of the passage. What do you think the topic
sentence of this paragraph would be? Let's underline it. Point out
to students that generally the first sentence of a paragraph is a great
topic sentence.
6. Continue to finish the passage with the students, one paragraph at a
time, following the rules on the provided bookmark.
7. When the class is done identifying the important ideas, write a
short three sentence summary of the passage. Do this on the board and
as a class.
Assessment:
8. Now you will read the article
"Tiny Frogs Ring in Spring" also from the National Geographic website.
A printed copy should be provided for each student. Students will draw,
underline, and scratch out just like we did as a group. Have students
write a paragraph summarizing the article in their own words.
Check summaries for main ideas and for understanding of main topic.
References:
Sarah Daughtry:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/projects/daughtryrl.html
Honey Bee Mystery article:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Honey-bee-mystery
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Spring-peepers