Rationale

The goal in reading is comprehension. In order for students to learn new information, they need to be able to read and comprehend. While students are reading, we want them to be able recognize the difference between important information and unimportant information and summarize that information. As students summarize, they highlight the key details in order to identify the main idea. In this lesson I will help the students gain the skills for summarization. Summarizing is a skill that all beginning readers need to practice in order to be successful in reading comprehension. This lesson is going to teach students the steps they can take in order to master summarizing large passages they read so that they can detect the important information. The teacher will then model how to summarize an article read aloud to the class. This lesson will help students gain the skills to summarize an article, in order to understand the deeper meaning behind the message. Students will use the following summarization rules: choose a topic sentence, cross out unimportant details or repeated ideas, and highlight important ideas and put into one sentence. In conclusion, the students will practice summarizing the new article independently and be evaluated.

 

 Materials:

• Pencils for students

• Paper for students

• Highlighters for students

• Smartboard

• Rules for Summarizing Poster

• Assessment Checklist

• “The Crunch Of An Apple And Fizz Of A Soda? Yum!” class copy

• “Newsflash: Girls Can Play Baseball Too!” class copy

 

Procedures:

• Say: “Today we are going to learn a new reading strategy called summarizing. This will help us to comprehend the stories we read as well as become even better readers! Can anyone tell me what a summary is? (Wait for response) Yes, that’s right! Summarizing is making a story shorter and picking out the important parts of the story and getting rid of the parts that are not important.” First, we must choose the main idea of our passage. Then, we need to cross out useless, unimportant, or repeated words and sentences. Finally, the last thing is to highlight the important facts/ideas and shrink these into a few sentences. Is everyone ready to try it? Let’s go!”

• Say: “Now we are going to practice together by reading an article and trying to summarize it. Let’s review the Summarization Rules. We need to choose the main idea, cross out, then summarize. The rules are listed on our Summarization Rules poster if you forget. Remember, summarizing is putting the passage you’re your own words. Your summarization should make the same point as the passage without the same exact words. The best way to do this is to read slowly, reread, and make notes. Then you can cross out the unimportant ideas and summarize.”

• Pass out a copy of the article, “The Crunch Of An Apple And Fizz Of A Soda? Yum!” to each student.

• Teacher will say: "We are going to read this article together as a class and practice the skills we have discussed to come up with a good summary together. The first time we read it, we don’t need to put any marks, just listen to the passage so we know what it’s about. This article is about a man who has found an apple that taste like a soda! Who likes soda? (Wait) Yeah! Me too! Let’s read and find out more about the soda tasting apple!”

• Teacher will read the article aloud to the class as they follow along with their own copy.

• Say: “Before we begin reading, let’s talk about some words we may not know the meaning of. Does anyone know what a crossbreed is? A crossbreed means to interbreed (take two of one thing and combine them) or to breed (animals or plants) using parents of different races, varieties, breeds, etc. What about the word replicate? Right, it means to repeat, duplicate, or reproduce.   

• Teacher will model how to summarize the article to the students.Teacher will say: "Now we need to summarize the article. How do we begin? (Wait for response.) Right, let's pick out important details and mark out unimportant details as we read the article again. Hmm. Do we think that a subject that is listed more than one time could be important? Do we think that may lead us to our main idea? As I read the first few sentences, I see that a type of apple is repeated and seems to be important. I think that this Paradise Sparkling apple is the main idea. Let me see if I can summarize the article… Remember, first I need to pick out the main idea. Hmm. I think the main idea is: A man named Robert Maierhofer discovered a new apple that when you bite into it, reminds you of a fizzy soda. Then I need to figure out what are the important facts or ideas. What should I do to figure these out?” Model crossing out unimportant information. “I think I figured out what the author wants me to know: Maierhofer was walking through his company orchard and found an apple that he had never seen before. You will be able to buy this apple in 2015 but don’t let their ugly looks turn you away, especially if you love soda!

• Teacher will pass out “Newsflash: Girls Can Play Baseball Too!” article.

• Say: “How many boys in here play baseball? How many girls play softball? Well boys and girls, what if a girl was on the boys baseball team and BEAT the boys? Well 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis plays with the boys and is pretty good! Let’s read about her and her story.

• Students will read the article and practice the steps of summarizing. They will be given enough time to read and summarize the article. Once they have read the article they will be instructed to write a summary based on their reading just like the teacher modeled in class. Each student will receive a checklist to remind them what to look for when summarizing.

 

Summary Checklist

Did I…

_____ Write my topic sentence?

_____ Find supporting details to help answer the question?

_____ Remove unimportant information by crossing it out?

_____ Remove repeated ideas?

_____ Create a 3-5 sentence summary?

 

Assessment:

The teacher will collect the student’s summarizations from the second article and evaluate based on the table below.

• Did the student….    Yes    No

• Did the student pick out the most important information?         

• Did the student delete unnecessary information?         

• Did the student fully understand the information from the article?         

• Did the student write a strong topic sentence?          

• Did the student write strong sentences summarizing the important part of the text?  

 

Reference: https://sites.google.com/site/msbyrdsreadinglessons/home/reading-to-learn-sweet-sweet-summarizers