Miss Runyan's Reading 

Swimming into Summarization

 

Rational:

 

Comprehension and understanding are the two main goals for individuals in reading. One of the best strategies used to accomplish this is summarization. Summarization works to improve comprehension by teaching students to delete information that they don’t need and to keep and organize the important information gained from the text. This lesson will help students learn this strategy so that they can grow in comprehension while reading independently.

 

Materials:

 

• Paper

• Pencils

• Dry-erase board & markers

• 3 main steps in summarization written on board

1. Get rid of things that are not important & repeated

2. Put the items/ideas in order from most important to least important

3. Find a sentence that covers everything that the writer says about the topic. If there is not one, make one yourself!

• Sample passage on board (from National Geographic Kids: Blue Marlin)

• Copies of article: National Geographic Kids: Blue Marlin (one for every child)

• Black colored pencils (one for every child)

• Highlighters (one for every child)

• Comprehension/Assessment questions (one for every child)

• Checklist (one for every child)

Procedures:

 

1. Say: Today we are going to talk about what it means to summarize a story. Do any of you have any ideas about what it means to summarize? (Listen for answers). Right, to summarize a story means to take the most important parts of the story and put it into your own words. Hmm… so what would important details be? (Listen for answers). Important details would be characters that stand out, maybe some key facts, and even some things that characters might do in the story. When we summarize a story we are retelling the story, but only with the most important details; we leave out the unimportant parts. We summarize things so that we can remember them better. This is really helpful when you read long books and articles.

2. Say: I am going to give you three rules that will help you with your summarizations! The first rule is to get rid of things that are not important, or things that are repeated. The second rule is to put the important items in order from most important to least important. Last, find a sentence that covers everything that the author is trying to say about the topic, or if there isn’t one, you can write one yourself!

3. Say: Now lets practice! I’ve given you all an article from National Geographic about blue marlins. A blue marlin is a type of fish and there’s a lot of really cool things about them that make them special. We’re going to read the first paragraph together, and I’ll show you how to summarize. Then I want you to summarize the rest of the article on your own! We’re going to be investigative scientists as we read this article and see what all we can learn about blue marlins. Follow along with me as I read the first paragraph out loud.

4. Say: Okay, who can give me a brief summary of what you read? (Give students a chance to show their summaries, offer help when they need it. Also, write down some of their ideas on the whiteboard.) Let’s take a look at my copy of this paragraph on the white board. Do you see how I highlighted some important details and crossed out those details that were not important to the story. (Model the sample below).

 

“Just how big is a blue marlin? Female blue marlins can grow up to 14 feet (4.3 meters) in length and can weigh more than 1,985 pounds (900 kilograms)!”

 

5. Say: Remember- our first sentence will tell us what the paragraph will be about. In this instance, its a question, but we know that this paragraph will tell us about how big a blue marlin is. I highlighted that they can grow up to 14 feet and weigh up to 1,985 pounds, but I crossed out what that is equal to in meters and kilograms because we don’t need to know that. In summarizing, some information is more important than others, and by practicing we can get better at knowing which information that is. There isn’t always one right answer, so just try and do your best.

6. Say: Now I want y’all to have a turn. Let’s finish reading this article so we can learn more about blue marlins and practice summarizing. I will give each of you a highlighter and a black colored pencil to mark details that are important/unimportant. The main idea of this article is blue marlins, so look for facts about blue marlins that would help us get to know them better; we want to know things like where they live and what they eat!

7. After you finish, come put your paper on my desk, and I’ll give you a different piece of paper with some questions I want you to answer (this will be the assessment). Make sure you support your answers with information from the text!

 

 

 

Assessment Questions:

1. Where can you find a blue marlin?

2. Where do blue marlins eat/feed?

3. What do blue marlins eat?

 

 

 

Checklist:                                                                                 YES                              NO

Student crossed out unimportant material

Student highlighted important material       

Student wrote a paragraph summarizing all most

            Important details of the text

 

 

 

References:

 

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/blue-marlin/#blue-marlin-closeup.jpg

 

http://isabellebrennan.wixsite.com/keylessonsinreading/reading-to-learn

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gif: http://dhalanghall.blogspot.com/2014/10/animated-fish-page-2.html