Reading to Learn

Leaping into Summarization

Reading to Learn Design

Paige DeShazo

Rationale: After students learn how to read fluently, the next step would then be reading to learn. To do this, students need to learn how to comprehend what they are reading. For a beginning reader to reach this goal, it is necessary to learn and practice summarization. This lesson will teach students the steps of summarization and allow them to practice these steps using resources.

Materials:

SMART Board, with steps to summarization posted on it:

Highlight important details
Scratch out repeated or unimportant details
Organize important parts by summarizing what you have learned

Card that has vocabulary word tadpole written on it

National Geographic article, Red-Eyed Tree Frog, copy for each student

Paper, pencil and highlighter for each student

Summarization checklist for each student

Procedure:

1. [Introduce the lesson by discussing comprehension and summarization] "Does anyone know what it is called when you understand what you are reading? [Wait for answers], Yes, it’s called comprehending. When you understand what you are reading, you can comprehend it. When you comprehend things, you learn and remember them. Today, we are going to learn a strategy to help us comprehend and understand what we read. This strategy is called summarization. Summarization is picking out the most important information out of a book, article, or text that you are reading. When doing this, we don’t focus on the small details; instead, we focus just on the main points of a selection. So, now we are going to learn this strategy together!"

2. There will be steps to summarization displayed on the SMART board in front of the classroom. [I will explain each step to the class, and ask if there are any questions after]

"These are the three steps we will use to summarize:

1. Pick out all the important details.

2. Find details that are not important to the text or are repeated and get rid of them.

3. Organize the important parts of the text. This step also includes making a main idea to summarize what you have learned."

3. "Lets work together to learn this strategy. We are going to be summarizing the first paragraph of an article from National Geographic about red-eyed frogs. These frogs are different from other frogs. They look very different from the one’s that we see around here. Before we begin, I want to explain to you that we have a special word that we are going to read. This word is going to be our vocabulary word. [Hold up the card that has the word tadpole] The word is tadpole, it means the larva of a frog or toad that has a long tail, breathes with gills, and lives in water. Let's read the first paragraph together and see if we can find our vocabulary word and some of the reasons why these frogs are so unique.”

Pass out a copy of the article Red-Eyed Tree Frog to each student. Allow the student's time to read it silently. Have students quietly look up at you when they are finished reading. When the students have all read the first paragraph of the article silently, read the paragraph aloud. Use the SMART Board to now display the text and model how to summarize using the 3 steps for summarization. I will ask students to follow along, and assist me as I go through this process. "First we need to highlight the important information. Does anyone see something important? Yes, we first learned that female frogs lay eggs. We need to highlight that! Do you see any others? Yes, we need to know that these frogs start out as tadpoles, and not full grown frogs. What about any thing that we do not need or that is repeated? We could probably cross out the part that tells us about the leaf that the female frog chose. Lets cross those out by drawing a line through them with our pencil. All right, now that I have completed my two steps I can now summarize with the important information I have left! A female red-eyed tree frog has laid a batch of eggs on a leaf. That's a great summary of the first paragraph because we only have the important information!"

4. Assessment: After the students have had enough practice working together as a class with my assistance on summarizing the first paragraph in the article, the students will try summarizing on their own. Let them have some time to finish reading the article, and then explain to them to take each paragraph at a time to summarize. "Now that we have practiced this skill of summarizing together, I want you to finish summarizing the rest of the article on your own. Remember to show the important information with your highlighter and cross out the unimportant or repeated information with your pencil. Then write your summary sentence(s) after. Does anyone have any questions?"

Once the students are finished, collect their work and score using the following checklist:

Did the student….?

Yes

Mark out unimportant and repeated information

Highlight important information

Write a brief, accurate summary which included the main idea of the text

References:

Red-Eyed Tree Frog, National Geographic

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/red-eyed-tree-frog/#red-eyed-tree-frog-on-leaves.jpg

Emily Jackson, Hopping into Summarization,

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/jacksonrl.htm

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