Animal Safari
Summaries
By: Rachel Cummings
Rationale:
Students
must eventually begin to read for comprehension. One key strategy in
being able
to read for comprehension is the ability to summarize. Through teacher
modeling
specific strategies students can learn to expand their comprehension
skills and
summarize for themselves.
Materials:
-Projector
- Vampire
Bat passage
- Tiger
passage for each student
-Pencils
for each student
- Walrus
passage for each student
Procedure:
- "When we
read something, there is a lot of information that we don’t need. If we
take
out the information that isn’t important, and retell the story with
only the important
information, that is called summarizing. We are going to learn to
summarize
some stories”
- Place
vampire bat passage on projector so students can see. “I am going to
read this passage
to myself, once I have done that I am going to reread it and pick out
what I
think is important information.” While reading underline the
information you find
important. “Now that I know what is important I am going to put that
information
together and leave out the unimportant items. This makes a summary.” Model rewriting using the projector.
- Hand out
a passage about tigers to each student. “Now lets all read this passage
about
tigers to ourselves. When you are done reading go back and underline
what you
think is important information.” Then ask the students to collaborate
and discuss
what they found important, while you underline what they say on the
projector.
Then work as a class to write a summary using the information they
found
important.
- Next we
will see if the students can summarize on their own. Hand out passages
about
walruses and ask each student to use the summarizing strategies they
just learned
to summarize the passage.
Assessment:
Students
will be assessed by turning in their summaries along with the original
passage
they marked on.
References:
- Amanda
Shankles Wild Animal Summaries: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/voyages/shanklesrl.html