All Together Now!
Rationale: Obtaining phoneme awareness and fluency are the building blocks for successful readers. Why do we want children to be successful readers? We want children to be successful readers so that they can gain knowledge and pleasure from reading through comprehension. Knowing how to decode words is wonderful, but obtaining meaning from words read is the ultimate goal. Summarization is one strategy that enables comprehension because readers are focusing on the main ideas of the texts read. This lesson will teach children how to summarize what they have read in order to increase their interpretation of what they have read.
Materials:
1. Copy of the National Geographic article
"Amazing
Bats of Braken Cave" by Catherine Clarke
Fox
2. One copy for every student of the National
Geographic "Crabs
Clean Up" by Catherine Clarke Fox
3. Assessment sheet to make sure the children have summarized correctly
5. Paper and Pen
6. Pencils
Procedure:
1. The first step when teaching children how to summarize is to explain why summarization is important. "Sometimes when you read you should try to find out what the main idea of the story is. In order to do this you must pick out the big parts of the story and not pay as much attention to the small parts of the story. This is called summarization or creating a summary."
2. The second step when teaching children to summarize is to model summarization for them. Begin the lesson by placing the article "Amazing Bats of Braken Cave" on the overhead projector. Make sure the article is clear and big enough for the children to read easily. "Alright everyone, we are all going to read this neat article about these bats that live in Texas. Read silently to yourself and look at me when you are finished so that I know when everyone has finished the article." Below is the first part of the article.
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.
After the children finish reading the article, place a plain sheet of
paper on
the projector and write these three tips. 1. Get rid of unnecessary
information. 2. Create umbrella terms which can be used to sum up
similar groups of words. 3. Write one or two summarizing sentences.
After writing these tips on the board, explain how to apply these tips
to the
article. Below is an example of how to summarize the first paragraph of
"Amazing Bats of Braken Cave."
1. ''Now letâs look at this first
paragraph. This information does not really tell us the main idea of
the story.
Remember the first step of summarization is to get rid of
unnecessary
information'' Make sure you mark out these parts of the article
with your
pen.
Sun is setting.
At the entrance of a deep
A few bats fly out and begin
swirling high.
More and more of the small furry
creatures appear.
Within a few minutes, a whole river
of bats is pouring.
And they keep coming
2. ''Now let's try to come up with some umbrella words for the
words left over from step one.'' Circle the
relevant information of the article with your pen.
Swirling
high;whole river of bats pouring= flying
they, them, small
furry creatures = bats
On a summer night millions of bats
were seen flying out of a dark cave.
4.
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 "Crabs Clean Up." This article is similar to
the above
article. Both articles are fairly short and have both main ideas and
unnecessary details. Fluent readers will be able to read the articles
and
practice the three step summary plan. "This article is about how useful
crabs
can be in the ocean. I want all of you to read this article silently
and then
go through the three step summary plan. On your own paper I would like
you to
write your sentence. Please staple your sentence to your article and
put it in
the ãclassworkä basket."
5. Go
over the article with the children so that they can see where they made
mistakes and where they did well. Talk with them about the unnecessary
information and the main ideas. Allow
the children to share their summary sentences if they wish.
6.
When
assessing the studentâs work, follow the rubric below. See if
children
were able to pick out what was relevant and irrelevant to the main idea
of the
article. Summarization activities like this should be done often in the
classroom because it gives children reading practice, knowledge, and
enhances
their comprehension. Below is a model of the three-step summary rubric.
|
Did
the student· |
All
or mostly |
Somewhat |
Hardly
or not at all |
|
Identify
information that was irrelevant? |
|
|
|
|
Create
Umbrella Words |
|
|
|
|
Create
a summary sentence that made sense and tied everything together? |
|
|
|
Reference:
Fox,
Catherine. Amazing Bats of Braken
Cave. National Geographic Kids. 1996-2007.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Bat-cave
Fox,
Catherine. Crabs Clean Up. National
Geographic Kids.
1996-2007.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/AnimalsNature/Crabs-clean-up
Rubric
inspired by Jessie Wiggins. ãLetâs Get to the Pointä
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/odysseys/wigginsrl.html
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