Sum
It Up!!!!
Rationale:
In this lesson, the learning goal is for the
struggling reader to work on either developing and/or strengthening
their
reading comprehension skills. This lesson is geared for an upper
elementary-aged student. In grades three through five, students should
be
acquiring and working on their reading comprehension skills. There is a
plethora of comprehension questions on standardized tests, and it is
also
beneficial to maturing readers, because comprehension strategies help
students
to understand what they are reading, which makes reading a more
pleasurable
experience. Oftentimes, teachers misinterpret low test scores as a
direct
reflection of a student’s intelligence; however, the students are often
very
bright, but lacking comprehension skills that enable them to fully
understand
and process information. Students can make great academic strides when
practicing the summarization technique. This lesson will
introduce the
concept of summarization, providing opportunities for practice
and
learning when the technique is applicable.
Materials:
Expository
text on Koalas titled Koala Profile, Poster
listing Van Djik and Kintsch’s summarization rules-i.e. (delete trivial
information and redundant information, create super ordinate terms for
a list
of items, select topic sentences for whole paragraphs and invent one if
there
isn’t already one present), paper, pencil, and comprehension questions
sheet
*(attached), web diagram sheet *(attached)
Procedures:
1.
Instructor will introduce the lesson by telling the student
that we are going to be working strategies that help readers to learn
and
retain information. “Today we are going to learn about a strategy
called summarization.
When we are reading to learn, or reading in hopes to gain information
about a
topic, we must take mental notes and summarize as we go along. This
helps when
you are answering comprehension questions, factual questions from the
story you
read. It is a great and helpful technique for readers of all ages!”
2.
Introduce the poster with the summarization techniques
presented by Van Djik and Kintsch. Go over each one thoroughly and
answer any
questions the student may have. (I have combined some of the similar
rules to
make it less overwhelming and lengthy.)
a.
Delete trivial and redundant information.
“This
means that sometimes there is information in a paragraph that isn’t
really
necessary for one to understand. In other words, we could still
understand the
topic without the addition of these trivial, or unimportant, sentences.
They
don’t really offer information directly pertinent, or important, to our
topic.
b.
Substitute super ordinate terms for a
list of items.
“For
example, if a particular paragraph is talking about baseball, soccer,
and
football, the super ordinate term for this series of terms would be
SPORTS. It
is helpful to narrow down a long series of terms by creating a word
that
encompasses, or includes all of them.
c.
Select or invent a topic sentence that covers
all of the information in a text, or a whole paragraph.
“For
you, as the reader of an article, it is helpful to think of one
sentence, also
called a topic sentence that sums up the entire paragraph. This way,
when you
are rereading the article to learn the information, you can view these
single
sentences that give you a paragraph worth’s information.”
Tell
the student how
important it is to commit these ‘rules’ to memory.
“It
will be very helpful
to you, if you learn these rules and commit them to memory. This way,
you will
be able to use them to help you when reading for information. People of
all
ages summarize information, and the ability to summarize effectively
will help
you throughout your whole life.”
4.
Explain to the student when it is appropriate to use
summarization as a reading comprehension strategy.
“Effective
comprehension
requires an accurate recall of information. Summarization is a strategy
that
helps us to correctly recall the most important facts from something we
read.
It is often most helpful to use summarization when reading expository
texts.
Expository texts are passages that are written for the sole purpose of
the
reader gaining information. They are informative and educational. Using
the
summarization rules on our poster, you can effectively summarize the
important
information and the knowledge that the author wants you to gain from
his/her
writing.”
5.
Introduce the Koala Profile article written by National
Geographic. Before the student reads, make sure to remind him/her to
keep the
summarization rules in mind while reading.
“I
have an informative, expository
article on Koalas. I would like for you to read it carefully. While you
are
reading, be sure to keep in mind the summarization rules on our poster.
Would
you like to review them again? ((briefly go over the rules again)).”
6.
After the student has completed the article, give him/ her the
web diagram sheet. This is a helpful way for the student to organize
information that is important while ‘deleting’ the trivial information.
The
teacher may need to scaffold the student as he/she completes the
diagram.
“Now
you are going to
complete this web diagram on the article that you just read. This is a
great
and helpful way for readers to sort through information and discover
what is
truly important and/or likely to be a comprehension question. While you
are
deciphering what is important, you can also weed through unnecessary
facts that
might not be as important.”
7.
Give the student the web diagram sheet and scaffold him/her
while completing it, so that they get an accurate experience with
separating
important and unimportant information.
Possible
guiding
questions: “What is this article about?” “What do koalas eat?” “How do
their
mother’s take care of them?” –This is all factual information that is
important
to be recalled.
8.
After the web diagram has been completed, help the student
create topic sentences for each paragraph in the article. For example,
you
could say the following to summarize the first paragraph: “Koalas are
pouched
animals that once they are born, they cling onto their mothers for the
first
year of their life.”
9.
Finally, have the student review his/her completed web and
topic sentences.
“Take
just a minute to
look over the information that you have collected and summarized about
this
article. Keep it in mind as I verbally ask you some comprehension
questions.”
10.
Present the questions one by one, and have the student answer
them.
“I
am going to ask you a
series of questions regarding the information that you just read and
wrote
about. Please listen carefully, and pay attention.”
11.
Conclude the lesson. “This concludes the lesson. I hope that
you have learned more about summarization, and when to use the
strategy. It is
very helpful to summarize informational passages, because it helps you
to
retain, and remember the information when asked to recall it. People of
all
ages summarize, and it is very helpful to them. I hope that you will
use the
summarization technique to help you!”
REFERENCES:
National
Geographic Website article on Koalas titled Koala
Profile.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/koala.html?nav=A-Z
This is a marvelous website that offers a
variety of templates that are printable and which can be easily
customized.
http://http://www.2Learn.ca/construct/graphicorg/concept/conceptmapindex.html
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