Sum It Up!!!
Rationale: The main goal of reading is comprehension. There are many strategies that students can use to help them comprehend written text. One of these strategies is summarization. Summarization is the process of finding the most important information from a reading. Students must follow several rules to help them effectively summarize. These include identifying the main information, deleting the trivial and redundant information, and relating main and supporting ideas. Effective use of summarization can greatly increase comprehension skills. In this lesson, the students will learn the 5 rules of summarization and apply them by reading an article and writing a summary.
paper, pencil, and highlighter for each student
dry erase board and dry erase marker
photocopies of "The Great Koala Rescue" for each student (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0503/)
2) Introduce summarization to the class. “The main purpose of reading is comprehension; that means that the reason that we read is to understand what we are reading. One strategy that can help us comprehend what we are reading is summarization. Summarization is a strategy in which you find the most important information in the text. Using summarization will help you be able to comprehend what you are reading.”
3) Explain the rules of summarization. “There are five very important rules that you should always remember when you are summarizing. First, pick out the important details. Second, pick out the details that are repeated or are not important and get rid of them. Third, use easy keywords to highlight important details. Fourth, list those keywords in order as they appeared in the passage.Fifth, trim the list of keywords to make one topic sentence.” (Write these on the dry erase board as you talk about them.)
4) Next, read a short story or article to the students. After you finish reading, model how to summarize using the five steps. “I am going to model for you how to summarize using the article/story I just read using our five steps.” Tell the students to pay close attention.
Next, pass out a photocopy of "The Great Koala Rescue" , a
pencil, and a
to each student. (The photocopy will
let the students mark on it.)
8)Tell the students to read the article silently and to highlight the key points with the highlighter and to mark out the unimportant information with the pencil as they read. Allow enough time for each student to finish and do not move on until everyone is done.
9) After the students have finished reading and marking, give each student a piece of paper and have them write a summary of "The Great Koala Rescue." Tell the students to make sure to use the 5 steps that we learned to write the summary.
10) Allow the students ample time to complete the assignment and collect the summary for assessment.
Call the students one at a time to the teacher’s desk or table. Have them read their summary aloud to you. This will not only allow you to assess their summary, but it will also provide an opportunity for you to assess their reading (if necessary) and also to allow them to opportunity to read.
Elizabeth. Pigging Out On
The Great Koala Rescue