Summarizing Scientists!

Reading to Learn

Sharly Citizen

Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to teach children how to summarize. Summarization is important in reading because it helps students find the main idea of the story. It allows them to tell the story in a shorter way. This skill is great for improving fluency and comprehension. The lesson will help children learn to summarize by taking small steps to achieve the bigger picture of summarizing. They will use skills such as highlighting, crossing out, and rewriting to summarize. The children will have fun becoming scientist and search for the best summary about the rare Tarsier Monkey out there!

Materials:

·         Paper

·         Pencils

·         Red Pen

·         Highlighters

·         Chart Paper

·         Article on Tarsier Monkey

·         Summarizing Checklist

o   Delete unimportant information

o   Delete repeated information

o   Substitute lists of words for a group word (ex. fish, dog, cat=pets)

o   Write a summary of what you have read

Procedures:

“Today we will be summarizing scientists! Before we start, who knows what the word summarize means?” Let the students answer. “When we summarize, we are taking a passage with a lot of information and decreasing it to the most important parts. This is a skill that good readers use to review what they have read.”

Background knowledge: I will have a sentence or two for the students to read. James went to the park and played on the slide. The park was his favorite place to be. “Now who can tell me who the main subject of the sentence is? James, that’s right.” By asking the students questions about the topic of these sentences, they will start to think about what is most important in the passage. This will help them later when they are summarizing larger articles.

Vocabulary Review Words: Island, Perspective, Primate, Endangered, and Captivity

We will review the meaning of each word before we begin our activity.

Explain: You can use what you know about the subject when reading longer texts. When a person reads something that is a paragraph or longer, they summarize what they have learned to comprehend the story. In doing this, they look for the most important details in the passage.

Model: There are four important steps I take in summarizing. They are: deleting unimportant information, deleting repeated information, substituting groups of words with a single word, and rewriting. I will use the example. Today James went to the park. The park was his favorite place to be. He loved the pond at the park. Sometimes, James would go to the park to feed the ducks, pigeons, and geese. Today it was sunny out. James always had a good time there. Now I am going to use my pencil to cross out the unimportant and repeated information. Next I’m going to replace words that can be grouped together and that can replace repeated phrases and write them in red. Today James went to the park. (It)The park was his favorite place to be. He loved the pond at the park. Sometimes, James would go to the park to feed the ducks, pigeons, and geese (birds). Today it was sunny out. James always had a good time there. Finally I will highlight the most important information and rewrite it to share with someone who has not read the story before. Today James went to the park. (It)The park was his favorite place to be. He loved the pond at the park. Sometimes, James would go to the park to feed the ducks, pigeons, and geese (birds). Today it was sunny out. James always had a good time there.

Practice: “I will tell the children that today we will be summarizing scientists. Now that we know what summarizing is, what do you think we will do today? That’s right! We will do lab research to find the best summary for a rare monkey called the Tarsier! In order for us to find the best summary, we must remember our four steps. It is really important that we follow them closely or we may not get the best summary on the monkey. That would let everyone in the science department down. I know y’all are smart and will find summary with main idea of the article!”

I will pass out the article and chart paper and have them read it in groups of four. I will walk around as they work and ask them questions like “what is the topic of this article?” “Where does the Tarsier live?” to scaffold their summarizing. Although, they are reading in groups, they are writing the summary alone. I place them in groups to help each other with reading or ideas.

Assessment: I will use their individual summaries to see if they grasp the idea. I will also use the sheet they used to highlight and cross out to see the skills they have or are lacking.

Reference:

Colvin, Janie. Star Summarizers.

Top 10 Rare Animals.

Tarsiers are found only in the islands of Southeast Asia. Since Southeast Asia encompasses a wide range of islands – Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and more, that might not seem like these little guys are so rare.  When you think about the fact that they used to live in many more regions, it sort of puts it in perspective.  They mostly live in Borneo.  These little primates are only 4-6 inches tall, but their hind legs are twice the length of their torso.  Additionally, their eyes are each the size of their brains.  What else makes these adorable little primates so rare?  They are the only primates who are completely carnivorous – insectivorous to be exact.  They stalk bugs and jump at them.  They also eat small animals like birds, bats, lizards, and snakes.  Tarsiers are considered Critically Endangered and will likely be on that list for some time.  They are, thus far, impossible to breed in captivity.

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