Rationale: Comprehension is the
final goal of learning to read. To be a
successful reader children should be able to read and summarize a story. When summarizing children should be able to
identify the important parts of texts they have read.
This lesson will teach students to identify the important parts
of texts they have read. Students will
learn one strategy of summarization through presentation of the
strategy,
modeling and guided practice.
Materials:
Paper
and pencils for each student
Dry
erase board and dry erase markers (or chalkboard and chalk)
Colored
pencils
Poster
with three summarization techniques (Pick out important ideas;
Eliminate less
important details; Organize the important ideas into one main idea)
Article
for each child (Odd Couples) http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0601/articles/mainarticle.html
Article
(Animal Ghosts)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0610/
Procedure:
1.
Ask the children, "Does anyone know
what summarization is?" Have class discuss on
summarization.
"Summarization is picking out the important facts out of something that
you are reading. When you summarize, you don't focus on all the
details. Today, we're going to learn how to summarize. This
will
help you become better readers. We're going to read silently at
our
desks. Can anyone tell me how we read silently at our
desks? Good
Job. We read to ourselves, and we don't talk to anyone around us.
2.
"There are three steps to summarizing a
story." Read the students a short paragraph of a story and model
how
to summarize it. For example the article Animal Ghosts.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0610/
"First I will read the story all the way through (read the story aloud). Then, to summarize I will go back through
and pick out all of the important ideas that the story has to have to
make
sense (underline a few key points of the story). After
I have picked out all of the important ideas I can cross
out the ones that are not important like this (demonstrate crossing out
irrelevant sentences). Now I can read
through the parts of the story I already decided were important (reread
underlined sentences) and create one single idea (write a summative
sentence)." As you model each of the steps point to the poster
with
the summarization techniques on it. After modeling how to
summarize do
one more quick review of the steps on the poster. "Before
we begin reading, let's go over the three important
things to remember when you read. The first step is to pick out
important
ideas from the story. Then we throw away the details that are not
important. Last we organize the important ideas and make one main
idea of
the story."
3.
Pass out and introduce the article Odd
Couples to each student. Have them read silently through the
first
paragraph of the article before focusing on the summarization
techniques.
Go over the summarization techniques again, and then have the students
reread
the first paragraph of the article. Tell them, "When you read the
story the second time, cross out all the information that isn't
important to
the story with a pencil, circle the sentences that you think are
important and
then finally, take all the circled sentences and combine them into a
sentence
or two that summarizes the whole article." Tell them to use the
three summarization techniques. Tell them to write down the facts
that
they think are important. Model three facts that you (teacher)
think are
important after they read theirs aloud. This will help them when
they do
this later.
4.
The students should have a basic
understanding of how to summarize a story now that they have had
practice. Pass out a piece of paper to each student. Tell
them to
make three columns. In the first column, they should put "Deleted
Information." In the second column, they should put "Important
Facts." In the third column, they should put "Most Important
Ideas." Explain to them to fill in information from the story
into
the three columns. Model using the first paragraph again.
This is a
great way to scaffold for the students. If a student continues to
have
problems putting the information into the columns on paper, allow them
to
continue using cross out/circle method. "Please finish reading
your
article silently. You should have three columns on your paper, write
the
sentences in the column that they fit under as you read the article, if
it
helps continue to cross out unimportant information and circle
important stuff.
Remember to write down all of your information as you go."
5.
Continue to practice summarization
strategies so that students can successfully master the skill of
summarizing.
Assessment:
You
can check students' summarization skills by checking their work to see
whether
they have used the cross out/circle method or the column method.
You
could also ask students comprehension questions related to the article
such as,
"What is a symbiotic relationship? or Are all symbiotic relationships
mutually beneficial? "
References:
Summarizing
Successfully! – Jessi Hodge http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/persp/hodgerl.html
National
Geographic Article – Odd Couples
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0601/articles/mainarticle.html
National
Geographic Story – Animal Ghosts