Summary Stars
Rationale:
Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading instruction. Children
must learn strategies that aid them in gaining meaning and knowledge
from the
text. Three rules make up the strategy of summarization: deleting
trivia and
redundancies, superordinating items and events, and compositing a
statement to
cover everything the writer is saying. Children must learn how to focus
on the
main idea of the reading in order to increase comprehension. Summarizing is a great strategy
that fluent readers use in
order to identify main ideas and recall information from the text. In
this
lesson, students will learn the six steps of summarization which will
allow
them to summarize what they are reading and receive a deeper
understanding of
the text.
Materials:
Paper
Pencils
Chart paper
12" x 12" pieces
of poster board
Markers
Copy of the National Geographic article "Amazing Bats of Braken Cave" by Catherine
Clarke Fox
Checklist for
each student with the following:
1. delete unimportant information
`
2. delete repeated information
3. substitute easy words for list items
4. add a series of events with an easy action term
5. select a topic
6. invent a topic sentence if there is not already one
A copy for each
student of the National Geographic article “Did
you ever get the feeling your dog was laughing at you?
Procedure:
1. Begin the lesson by asking the students if they
can define the word summary. Then ask them if they know what it means
to
summarize. After their answers, discuss what
summarizing is and why it is important. Explain that the word summarize
means
to take out the main points of the story and put them together to make
a
summary, a few sentences that describe what the article is about. “When
you are
reading you summarize in your head by deleting the less important parts
of the
story and making note of the important ones.”
2. In order to teach
children how to summarize I will model summarization for them. The
article
"Amazing Bats of Broken Cave" will be available on the board for
everyone to see. The class will be instructed to read this article
silently to
themselves. "Alright everyone, today we are going to read a story about
bats
that live in
The sun is setting on a summer night. At the
entrance to a deep, dark cave, a few bats fly out and begin swirling
high up
into the air. More and more of the small, furry creatures appear.
Within a few
minutes, a whole river of bats is pouring out of the cave, and they
keep
coming, millions and millions of them.
3. "Ok, now
that you have read the story let's learn the six steps of
summarizing." (write on chart paper) 1. Delete unimportant information.
2.
Delete repeated information 3. Substitute easy words for lists of items
4. Add
a series of events with an easy action term. 5. Select a topic 6.
Invent a
topic sentence if there is not one. "It is important to delete
unimportant
information because it will distract us from the main point of the
article.
When we substitute easy words for lists of items, we are able to
shorten the
amount of information we have to remember. For example, we may
want to remember
a list such as jackets, shirts, shorts, and pants. We may want to
simplify this list by calling it Clothing. We can place each of
these items
under the topic of clothing to help us recall them. We can add a
series
of events with an action term to help us recall a passage as
well. Then
we can select a topic of the events in our passage and create a topic
sentence
that describes the passage we have read."
4. "Let's talk
about what you read in the article together. I am going
to draw a picture on the chart paper. This drawing is called a
web.
Webs help us organize our information and understand what we
know.
Remember to look at the summary checklist on our other chart.
Where do I
put the main topic on our web? (the middle) Very good! What
should
I put in the middle of the web?" (Bats in
5. Together we
will summarize the first paragraph. We will use of web to
pull important information that will help us create our sentence. The
students
will work together to come up with this summary. “On
a summer night millions of bats were seen
flying out of a dark cave.” The teacher should continue this process
for the
entire article and ask the children to help for each paragraph. After
modeling
how to create a summary, give the students each a copy of " Did you
ever get the feeling your dog was laughing at
you? by Aline Alexander Newman."
6. Now the
students should try summarization on
their own. Remind the students to look at the poster with steps for
assistance.
“Now I want you to read and summarize
this new article by yourself. I
would like to remind you that I should not hear any talking because you
are to
be reading silently at your desk. On your own paper I would like
you to write your sentence." Tell that students that you are now going
to
pass out poster board to every pair of students and they are to work
together
to summarize the article, remind them to use their checklist to do
their
summarization.
7. To assess
the students I will compare their checklists to their webs.
They will also individually write a brief paragraph summary based on
their web.
I will make sure the students used the six steps to create a
summary.
References:
Fox, Catherine. Amazing Bats of
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Bat-cave
Did you ever get the feeling your dog was
laughing at you?
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0604/
Scyphers, Sharon. Sum it Up! http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/encounters/scyphersrl.html