Spring into Summarizing! 

                                                                                                                                                                                             

Rational:

One very important part of learning to read is comprehension.  One way to learn comprehension is summarizing.  Students need instruction on the best way to summarize and that is what this lesson is about.  This lesson will show students how to pick out the important and unimportant parts of the text by learning the five summarization tips. 

Materials:

-paper

-pencils

-a copy for each student of Did you ever get the feeling your dog was laughing at you? by Aline Alexander Newman http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0604/

-Article for each child: Cool Things about Elephants by Aline Alexander Newman http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0606/

-Summarizing Tips poster:

1. Delete unimportant information.

2. Delete repeated information.

3. Substitute easy words for a list of items.

4. Add a series of events with an easy action term.

5. Choose a topic.

6. Create a topic sentence if one is not given

-lined paper

-highlighters for each student

-Check List:

Procedure:

 1. I will start the class by asking the students if they know what comprehension means.  "Has anyone ever heard the word comprehension?"  "Well comprehension is understanding what we are reading and then remembering it after we are done.  Today we are going to learn how to comprehend what we are reading.  We are going to do this summarizing.  Summarizing is reading and picking out the important parts of a story. This makes comprehending the story easier because you are deleting the unimportant parts of the story from your mind." 

 2. "Everyone look at our board there are six steps to summarizing.  First, delete unimportant information, second delete repeated information, third substitute easy words for a list of items, fourth, add a series of events with an easy action term, fifth, choose a topic and finally, create a topic sentence if one is not given."

  3. Now I will model how to summarize.  I will pass out a copies of Did you ever get the feeling your dog was laughing at you? and a highlighter to the class. "Now everyone will watch me as I summarize this article.  Everyone will read the article silently and I will be picking out the important parts. Ok Research suggests that the huffing noise a dog makes may be laughter.  They huff when they are playing alone or with someone.  But when other dogs hear this sound recorded, how do they behave?  To find out you will have to read the rest of the article silently." After the read a little while ask: "Can anyone tell me what this story is about? Good! It is about dogs, the noises that they make and how other dogs respond to the sound recording. Let's highlight the main ideas: dogs, huffing noises, the responses of the other dogs to the recording".  After this I will explain what kind of information can be deleted, "Information that is not important to the meaning of the paragraph include, the fact that they make noises while playing with a toy and that the pups acted afraid when they heard growls, whines and barks."  Lastly, the teacher needs to model how to relate the main facts into one to three good summative sentences. Model by saying, "this article is about dogs and how they make huffing noises that seems to be laughter.  In addition, other dogs respond to this noise positively."

 4. "Now everyone is going summarize on their own! Make sure you look at the board if you forget a step."  I will pass out Cool Things about Elephants by Aline Alexander Newman. "This is a really neat article about elephants and how they do not forget anything! Remember you should be reading quietly to yourself."

Assessment:

The students will be summarizing their article and I will have a checklist to assess the students.

-Check List:

Refrences:

Newman, Aline Alexander.''Cool Things about Elephant''  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0606/

Did you ever get the feeling your dog was laughing at you?  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0604/

Ogubie, Alexis It's time to Summarize http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/ogubierl.html