Reading to Learn

Buzzing Into Summarization

Reading to Learn

By: Kate Farley

Rationale:

Once students learn to read correctly and fluently, it is time for students to move onto the next step or level. The next level is learning to read in a way that they can comprehend what they are reading. In other words, children must learn to read to learn after they have learned to read. They key component of reading to learn is being able to summarize. There are many different techniques to teach students how to read comprehensively, the main one this lesson will focus on is summarization. Summarizing teaches students how to delete the information that is not needed and use a graphic organizer.

Materials:

Pencil (1 per child)
Paper (1 per child)
Highlighter (1 per child)
White board
Dry erase marker
Sheet of blank paper for summarizing rules
Sheet of lined paper for summarizing articles
Copies of the article, "New Dolphin Species Discovered in Big City Harbor" (one per student, one for teacher) Ker Than. Published by National Geographic News
Copies of the article, "Honeybee Mystery" (one per student, one for teacher) by Catherine Clarke Fox. Published by National Geographic Kids.
Rubric for grading summaries
Overhead camera

Procedures:

1. Start off lesson by introducing students to the concept of summarizing.

Say: “Today, we are going to be learning how to summarize an article! Summarizing is an excellent way to help us understand what we read after we read it. Summarizing is when you take the entire passage you have read and shrink it down to just the information or events that are the most important We are going to practice how to do this skill with two different articles. We will focus on what the main idea is, what facts support the main idea, and what information we can remove.

2. Say: Now, we are going to learn the rules for summarizing. I want everyone to make sure they came up and received a piece of paper to fill in the rules as we learn them. I am going to write each rule on the white board and I want you to copy each one onto your paper as you see me writing it on the board. Once we finish writing down all of the helpful tips, you can leave this piece of paper on your desk as you read your articles to help you as you read

3. Say:

The 1st step in summarization is: delete trivia and redundancies
The 2nd step i: superordinate items and events.
The 3rd and final step is: ind or compose a statement that covers everything the writer is saying about the topic.

Say: The main idea should be supported by the details. Now, write these steps on the piece of paper I gave each of you. [Ask students to recall the steps to you as you have them write the steps on their paper.] Then, at the bottom the students will write down on their paper some key points to remember in regards to summarizing. For instance, summaries should always be shorter in length than the information you are summarizing.

4. I’m going to pass out an article now, “New Dolphin Species Discovered in Big City Harbor.” Give every student a copy and then give the following booktalk, “This article is about a new species of dolphin that was discovered in Australia. How do you think this species of dolphin will be different from any dolphin that you have seen?” (Article is short so that it will not be overwhelming.) Great! Now, the first thing I want to do is pick out any information in the article that is not important. I don't think we really need to know that Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia. Let's all take our pencil and cross that sentence out. Next, we need to highlight and locate important pieces of information in the text. For example, when it says, “The new dolphin has been named the Burrunan dolphin, after an Aboriginal phrase meaning "large fish of the porpoise kind," we need to highlight the name of the new dolphin. Lastly, we need to write our topic sentence. Next, we need to create our topic sentence. We know that the article is about a new species of dolphin, so maybe our topic sentence could be a new species of dolphin has been discovered in Australia. Now we can use our topic sentence and the information that we have left to write our summary. On your own paper, write the topic sentence and the rest of the information that we have left in your own words. (Walk around to scaffold the writing.) Another idea would be to use about/point to create the topic sentence. Ask the students, "What is it about?" and "What is the main point?"

5. Now, pass out, pass out the article “Honeybee Mystery.” We’re going to all read the first two paragraphs as a class and practice how to summarize before you all try on your own. While you are reading the article remember to highlight the important information, and cross out the unimportant information. After each paragraph, write a summary sentence asking yourself the questions: What’s the big idea? What’s the point?” [Once student finishes reading paragraph two, stop them.] Okay, so let’s practice summarizing using the second paragraph [display on overhead camera]:

Bees give us a lot more than delicious honey. They are pollinators—they enable plants to produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next. The wind pollinates oats, corn, and wheat, but many other plants (like apple and cherry trees and melon vines) depend on insects, bats, and birds.

6. First, we want to look for the main idea in this sentence. Usually the main idea is relevant to the title of the article or mentioned a lot throughout the article. [Ask what students think is the main point.] Great job! The message that this sentence is trying to get across is that bees are pollinators. While all of the other information is important for reference purposes, it’s not the absolute most important to us right now for summarizing, so we can cross it out. Your sentence should look like this now, but the remaining part of your sentence should be crossed out [display on overhead camera]:

Bees give us a lot more than delicious honey. They are pollinators—they enable plants to produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next.

7. On your new blank piece of lined paper, summarize this main idea. The main idea of this information is that Bees give us a lot more than delicious honey. They are pollinators—they enable plants to produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next.

Say: Let’s continue to pick out important points in each paragraph of the article. Now that you all did it so well together, I want you to go through and continue reading the article on your own. Summarize as much as you can, highlighting important parts and marking through unimportant details. I’ll come around and check your work.

8. Everyone’s papers are looking awesome so far! Once you’ve read the entire article and seem to have found the main ideas and supporting details highlighted, I want you to jot down a one-paragraph brief summary on the article. At the bottom of your article, write five new words you have never seen before you read this article and write their definitions/what you think they mean based on the context within the article. Does anybody have any questions? If not, I want you all to begin this. If you think of any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and I will come help you.

Assessment:

Students will be assessed at the end on how well they did on their summaries. I will use this scoring rubric to grade their summaries for the correct information:

Did the student in he/she’s summary…

Yes

Begin by getting rid of the insignificant information?

Organize items and events together?

Select key topic/overall theme?

Select key information from the article?

Write a topic sentence or statement that covers everything that is important from the passage of the text?

List 5 new vocabulary words/definitions at the end?

I will also ask the students a series of comprehension questions to see if they read and understood the article: