Long
Story Short
Reading to Learn
Rationale:
The goal of reading is to comprehend the text. To some,
comprehension can be a barrier during their reading. This may be
because they are having difficulty reading or because they lack
successful strategies that would make comprehension easier for
them. Many strategies exist for providing the student a means for
understanding text. Summarization is one of these strategies that
allows students to take the important information from a passage and
remember it for further use, while disregarding unimportant or trivial
information. Students need to be instructed on how to summarize
efficiently. The purpose of this lesson will be to teach students
how to summarize by asking themselves questions and learning the
important steps of summarization.
Materials:
White board (to write questions and steps), white board markers,
pencils, paper (to write summary), Class copies of National Geographic
for Kids magazine (use article Giant Jellyfish Invasion)
article talk: There are some giant jellyfish called Nomura Jellyfish
that are invading Japan, and it is causing a major problem. We should
read the rest of the article to find out what happens.
1.
First, tell the students they will be reading silently in a
magazine. Refresh their minds by reminding them how to read
silently. Be sure to tell them that reading silently means that
they do not talk with their neighbor and show them how to follow along
closely with the text and even how to reread the passage if they are
unclear about a portion of it.
2. Good morning class!! Today we are going
to learn how to summarize an article after we silently read it to
ourselves first. This will help you understand what you read in
the future and get the most out of your reading. Now we are going
to read this article silently. Let's remember to follow along
closely and not talk. You can begin reading now.
3. Wait
until all children are finished reading.
Okay, I think we've all finished are
article now. Now we're going to learn how to summarize what we've
just finished reading. Does anyone know what summarization means?
Great job! To summarize means that you have picked out the important
information from an article or story. There are several important
steps to remember when summarizing a story.
Write the steps on your marker board.
Steps:
Delete unimportant information.
Delete repeated information.
Substitute easy terms for list of items
Write a series of events.
Select a topic.
Find the topic sentence, or make one if
there is not one.
As you
explain each step to the students, model the procedure and answer
questions they have.
These are just a few steps that will make
summarization a little easier for you. If I read an article about
how to get up and get ready by myself in the morning, I don't need to
remember what kind of pajamas the person in the article was wearing or
what kind of toothbrush he/she had. I need to remember the main
points that it hit on. For instance, I would need to remember
that I have to set an alarm to wake me up. Then I need to get up
and get a shower. After that, I would have to decide what I want
to wear to school and get dressed. Next I need to eat a
well-balanced breakfast and then brush my teeth before I leave for
school. Those would be the main points of the article.
However, what the person in the article had for breakfast would be
relatively useless and unimportant to me.
4.
Put the
class in groups.
One thing that will help you summarize is to draw
a map. You put the main idea in the middle square and then the
supporting details around it. This reminds me a wheel with the
hubcap in the middle and spokes coming out of it. Demonstrate this on the board as
you are telling them what to do.
Now, I want you to use the six steps
we talked about earlier and make a map of our article.
Put the map on the board.
What would the middle circle be?
The main idea. Good! Okay, what is the main idea of the
story? Jellyfish. Great! Now, we will draw spokes coming
from the circle that describe something about the jellyfish. What
are some important ideas about the jellyfish? The jellyfish are
huge and can weigh up to 450 pounds. These are great ideas!
Remember to always come up with ideas that support the main idea, which
here is jellyfish, and continue to draw lines from the main idea.
Give the students some time to think on their own of some more
details. Tell them after they finish the web that if they make
these ideas into complete sentences then that will be their
summary.
Remember you should always have a topic
sentence. This topic lets the reader know the main idea of the
story. The other ideas support the topic.
5.
Now take your piece of paper and write
a short summary on the article. Remember to answer the questions
and follow the guidelines we just talked about. Raise your hand
when you are done and I will collect them to see if you followed
directions and see if you followed the questions for writing a
summary. Then as a class, discuss the main ideas,
setting, characters, and other information that might be helpful to
help you summarize.
Assessment:
I will read their summaries to check whether they understood the
article that they just finished reading. They should have
included the main ideas or key points from the article.
Resources:
Shorten
the Length by Dorsey Tippett. Spring 2005.
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/connect/tippettrl.html
Musgrave,
Ruth. Giant Jellyfish Invasion.
National Geographic Kids Online.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Giant-jellyfish-invasion