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Slicing into Summarization!

A Reading to Learn Lesson

By Allissa Stanley

 

Rationale: The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. This lesson introduces students to understanding a helpful strategy known as summarization, which will help them read to learn and understand the text. The goal of this lesson is to teach students how to pick out important information, summarize the text, and then demonstrate their understanding. They will achieve this goal by reading a short article about pumpkins, identifying important information, and then writing a summary.

 

Materials:

• Article about pumpkins from Britannica kids

• Pencil and paper

• Highlighters

• Reading checklist

• Reading comprehension quiz

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today we are going to work on our reading skills. When we read a text isn’t it more fun and easier when you understand what the text is saying? That way we can know if it is a funny story or a sad story and get the meaning of the story! Understanding the point of the story is what it means when we say reading comprehension. Does anyone know what summarize means? Exactly! We break down the most important parts of the story like the main point and purpose and then we break it down into smaller explanation. You do this every day without even realizing it. For example, when you tell someone a really fun story you tell the important parts about what happened! Summarizing will help us improve our reading comprehension and storytelling skills!”

2. Say: “One way we can summarize is by using something called about-point. This is when ask ourselves two different questions about what we read. [write the questions on the board so that all students can see and reference]. The first question is “what is the text about?” The second is “What is the main point the writer is making about the topic?” When you answer the second question, it will help you find the “umbrella term” this covers the important parts that the author has written. To find the important parts in a text, you have to take away the trivial information. It is helpful to cross it out so you can’t see it. Once we have the answers to these questions, it will later help you formulate your sentences in your summary.”

3. Say: “When we summarize there are three rules that we must follow to summarize effectively. The first rule is to cross out any information that isn’t important. Second, highlight the important information and terms in the story. Third, create a topic sentence based on the umbrella terms and the text that you highlighted. Now that we know these rules, let’s use them!”

4. Say: “I am going to show you how to summarize. We are going to read an article about pumpkins. In this article, we are given a lot of information about pumpkins that is super interesting and will tell us all about pumpkins! Let’s read this article to find out more about pumpkins. Does anyone know what a pumpkin is? [let students answer]. I am going to read part of this article and we will see if we can find out what pumpkins are.”

   • “Pumpkins are fruits that are commonly grown for food. The inside is cooked and eaten or used to make breads, soups, and pies. Pumpkins are related to squashes, gourds, cucumbers, and melons. Some types of pumpkins are called squashes.”

5. Say: “Before we go over how to summarize this, let’s look at some words in this paragraph that we don’t recognize. There is squash, gourd, and melon. These are all types of fruit. You might have eaten some these before. So why is this text talking about fruits? Well, that’s because a pumpkin is a fruit. So now that know that let’s summarize.”

6. Say: “In this text, there is a lot of useful information. Let’s highlight it. I think the first piece of important information is “Pumpkins are fruits.” This is important because it tells us what pumpkins are. The next piece I would highlight is “The inside is cooked and eaten,” this tells us what pumpkins are commonly used for. Now let’s cross out any information we don’t need. We can cross out the information about what pumpkins are commonly grown for and what pumpkins can be used to make.

7. Say: “Now that we’ve done some of it together, I want you all to read the rest of the article and summarize it on your own. Once you are done reading raise your hand and I’ll come over to give you a checklist. This will help you write a summary of the article based on the information you highlighted. When you are done with the checklist, share your summary with a partner and talk about how your summaries are similar and different. Once everyone is done, we will take a little quiz to see if you were able to summarize the text.”

 

Assessments:

• Reading Checklist:

  • Did I…

    • Highlight the important details

    • Cross out what is not important

    • Write my topic sentence

    • Write a 6-8 sentence summary

  • Did my partner…

    • Find important and basic information

    • Create a topic sentence based on the highlighted information

    • Include a 6-8 sentence summary

    • Include key ideas in the summary

• Quiz:

  • What is a pumpkin?

  • What can we do with a pumpkin?

  • What other kinds of fruits are pumpkins related to?

  • What else can a pumpkin be called?

 

Resources:

Caroline Parsons, Jurassic Comprehension https://carolineparsons.weebly.com/ready-to-learn.html

 

John Phillips, The Panda Can Summarize https://johndavid2332.wixsite.com/jdp0058/reading-to-learn

 

Pumpkin Article https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/pumpkin/353680

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Reading Genie Awakenings Index 

https://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/home/classroom/awakenings/