Reading to Learn | kgilley0318

Summarizing in the Sea

Reading to Learn

Rationale: Summarization is one of the two most powerful strategies for comprehending text. Summarization is an important literacy goal because it helps students to understand what has been read. By teaching children how to delete useless and redundant information and finding or creating a topic sentence that covers the main idea of the text, we can help students remember information that they read and gain better reading comprehension. This lesson will teach students how to summarize what they are reading and ultimately learn how to find meaning in what they read.

Materials:

Pencil (one per student)
Lined paper for each student.
Class set of the article “Where do Seashells come from?” (One for the doc cam as well)
Doc camera in classroom
Assessment chart (for teacher use)
Poster with summarizing rules:

Delete unimportant or repeated information
Find important information
Write a topic sentence

Highlighter for each student
Comprehension Quiz

Procedures:

Explain to children why summarization is important: “When we read a text we could spend all day trying to remember all the words and all the details. Good readers don’t try to remember everything. They use summarization strategies to remember only the important points the author is making about the topic. In that way, they reduce a text that may have hundreds or thousands of words to a compact gist that is easy to remember.”
Say: “When we summarize, we need to know some important rules. First, we need to delete any unimportant information. Next, we need to read through and delete any repeated information. Then, select or invent a topic sentence to begin our summary.”
Say: “Now let’s talk more about summarization. Everybody take out a sheet of paper. Fold your piece of paper and fold it into three. Then staple the pieces to make a booklet. Okay now let’s look at our “Rules of Summarizing” poster. Who can read me what the first rule of summarizing is? (Call on student). Yes, the first rule of summarizing is to delete unimportant or repeated information. We don’t want to keep any repeated information. Everybody write the rule on the first page of your booklet. It can be very helpful to cross out unimportant information if you can write on the article you are reading. Then when reading a book, take mental notes of the important parts. This will help you understand the message the author is trying to tell you. Let’s look at the second rule. The second rule is to find important information. Everybody write this rule on the second page. When you find something that is important in the book or article you are reading, underline or highlight the sentence so that you can go back and remember that it must be important. The third rule of summarization is to make a topic sentence. Everybody write this rule on the third page. Making a topic sentence can be very challenging because most texts don’t have topic sentences incorporated. A topic sentence combines all of the important information in a short, condensed way so that you are able to summarize and comprehend the paragraph you read.
Say: Now we are going to practice summarizing with an article called “Where do Seashells Come From?” Have you ever thought about where seashells come from? I know I have! According to this mystery article they aren’t just there, they are created by something special. Let’s read more to find out! Let’s look at the first paragraph of the article together: “Seashells are the external skeletons of a class of marine animals called Mollusks. Where people have our skeletons on the inside of our bodies, mollusks have theirs on the outside of theirs. This way they help protect the creatures from predators, strong currents and storms, help camouflage the animal, and do many other things. Seashells are primarily made of calcium, a hard mineral, as our own bones are.” “Let’s look at one word that stands out to me: external. Let me use it in a sentence to see if you can use context clues to figure out what it means. A turtle has an external shell that protects it and gives it shelter. What does it mean when it says shells are external? I want you to turn and talk to the person next to you and come up with a sentence using the word “external.” (wait time) “Can anyone tell me what the word external means? Who can tell me the sentence you and your partner came up with?” Call on students. Great! So we figured out that external means on the outside of something.”
Say” Ok, now I want everyone to watch me as I use my rules to summarize the paragraph. (Pull out a pre- made booklet with 3 pages). Let’s look at the first sentence” “Seashells are the external skeletons of a class of marine animals called Mollusks.” Do we think it is important that we know this information? I would say yes. I think this is an important fact so I am going to write this on my second page in my booklet. Let’s look at the second sentence and third sentences. Where people have our skeletons on the inside of our bodies, mollusks have theirs on the outside of theirs. This way they help protect the creatures from predators, strong currents, and storms, help camouflage the animal, and do many other things. I do not think sentence number two is very important because the first sentence already states that the shell is on the outside of a mollusk’s body. Sentence three tells us what the shell does so it is important. I am going to write sentence number two under the first page and three on my second page of my booklet. Let’s look at the next sentence—Seashells are primarily made of calcium, a hard mineral, as our own bones are. Okay, I see some repeated information here. It repeats that seashells are like skeletons. I am going to write this information on my first page. I am going to mark an X over the rest of the information and write it in my first column because I don’t think it is important. “
Say: “Now that we have finished the first paragraph let’s try and see if we can come up with a topic sentence. Remember, a topic sentence is one sentence that explains what the whole paragraph is talking about. I am going to look at the parts I have on my second page for the important information I wrote down. Look at your second page to see what important information that we wrote down. I have “Seashells are the external skeletons of a class of marine animals called Mollusks. This way they help protect the creatures from predators, strong currents and storms, help camouflage the animal, and do many other things.” I would make this a topic sentence by saying: Seashells are external skeletons of an animal called a Mollusk. It protects them from predators, strong currents, and storms, helps camouflage them, and do many other things. Now I have all my important information and the summary of the paragraph I just read. Does anyone have any questions?
Say: “Now I am going to let you summarize each of the remaning paragraphs. Remember to use your booklet with the columns to help you break up the information. You can also look at our summarizing poster as well if you need help! Come up with one topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, I want you to staple the article to the back of your book and turn it in to me.”
Assessment: I will review each student’s booklets to determine if they could successfully summarize the different paragraphs. I will use the assessment checklist to record each child’s grade. Topic sentences may vary slightly, but I will be looking to see if the child included the important information in each.

Comprehension Questions:

What happens when a Mollusk dies?
What are the two different types of Mollusks?
Who else might live in a seashell?

Assessment Checklist:

Student Name:

Did the student fill out the chart on his/ her paper?
Did the students come up with topic sentences for the remaining paragraphs?
Did the student successfully delete unimportant/ redundant information?
Did the student successfully identify important parts?
Did the students use the important information to come up with topic sentence?

References:

Seashells and Such, Where do Seashells come from?

http://www.seashellsandsuch.com/articles/wherecom

Grisham,Carly: Sailing Through Summarization

http://carlymgrisham.wixsite.com/mscarlyreading/reading-to-learn

Entries Index:http: //www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/entries.html

Kathryn Ivy Gilley

Disclaimer: