Ms. Kelley's Reading Site
Let's Sum It Up
Reading to Learn
Kaide Kelley
Rationale: Comprehension is the ultimate goal of a student's reading development. When a student reads for comprehension, they are no longer spending time decoding words, instead, they are focused on understanding the message of the text.. In order for beginning readers to reach this goal, it is important for them to be able to learn and practice how to summarize. For this lesson, students will practice summarizing which is one of the many comprehension strategies. Students will summarize text by selecting important information and eliminating unnecessary details.The teacher will model how students detect important information that is needed to write an effective summary. After learning how to use this skill, the students will be on their way to becoming better readers.
Materials: Paper, Pencil, Markers, Article on Emperor Penguin, Article on Birthday Party Project, Large Chart paper with a web drawn on it, Summary checklist for each student, Checklist for teacher per student
Procedures:
1. I will discuss with the students what summarizing is and why is it important for the reading process and comprehending text. Say: "Can anyone tell me what you think of when you hear the word summarize?" (Wait for student response). " Very good, when we talk about summarizing something, we are saying to take out the main points or the most important points of a passage and put them together to create a summary. A summary is a description of the main parts in a story. So, today we are going to learn more about summarizing passages and practice how to summarize passages together with the class."
2. Say: "A very important part that we cannot forget to summarizing a story is reading alone and independently asking yourself questions about what you are reading while you read the story. Another super important rule when summarizing is to delete any unimportant and repeated information. This rule lets us to take out anything that is not important to the passage we are reading and anything that is mentioned more than once. So, just remember: 1. Delete trivia and redundancies. 2. Superordinate items and events. 3. Compose a topic sentence. This will help you to understand the message the author is trying to tell you."
3. I am going to read a short passage to show you how to ask yourself questions while reading a story, and also delete and unimportant/repeated information." After I finishing modeling to my students, I will pass out the short article on Emperor Penguins. BOOKTALK: This article is about emperor penguins and where they live and how they survive on many clever adaptations. Penguins are a type of bird that is flightless and breeds in the winter. They have a courtship that lasts for several weeks. Let us read the article to learn more about how a penguin is born and learns to live on their own. Now, I want you to read this story, on penguins, to yourself and quietly practice asking yourself questions while you read. Also, think about the information that is repeated that you could cross out.
4. "Now that everyone has read the article to themselves, let us talk about the article as a class. Did someone see a word that they did not recognize? (Wait for student response). One of the words I saw was courtship, which is known as a romantic relationship. If I were to use it in a sentence, it would go something like this: "This courtship has been going on way too long, and you are getting bored. Another one I saw was regurgitate, which means to bring swallowed food again up to mouth. "Food might regurgitate from the stomach into the mouth." You would not say: "Sally regurgitated facts during an exam." This would be wrong because here it means to repeat information without comprehending it. I could use the word in a question: "Did the penguin regurgitate the food it ate last night?" So, basically I am asking if the penguin spit up swallowed food. Lastly, I want you to complete this sentence: If the penguin throws up swallowed food again to the mouth, it would be considered ___________________.
5. Say: "I am going to draw a web on the chart paper. This web will help us organize our important thoughts and main points from Emperor Penguin. Who can tell me where I should write the main topic from our article in our web? (Wait for student response). Good job! It does go in the center. So the main topic of our story is Emperor Penguins. Let us discuss the important information in the article. I would say there are a few to discuss. 1. They spend their entire lives on Antarctic ice and in its waters. 2. After the several week courtship, a female emperor penguin lays one single egg and leaves. 3. The daddy penguin stands for about 65 days, through icy temperatures, until the female returns with regurgitated food to take care of the chicks." [When making web, be sure to draw a line from the center circle and write each point at the end of the line.] While students tell me their ideas, I will record them on the web. "We can use this web we have made to help us summarize the article by making sentences out of some of our responses."
6. Teacher will pass out new article Birthday Party Project Brings Kids Joy One Party At A Time.
7. How many of you in here get excited to celebrate your birthday? Well, what if you never got to experience the joy of celebrating the day you were born? There are some children who do not get to experience that fun, but there is a lady who is making that happen for them. Let us read the article and find out how she is going to make it happen for these children to be able to experience that celebration for the day they were born.
8. Students will read the article and will be able to practice the steps of summarizing. The students will be given enough time to read and summarize the article on their own. Once they have read the article they will be instructed to draw a web 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 main topic sentence? (In the center)
_____ Find 3-4 supporting details to help answer the question?
_____ Remove unimportant information by crossing it out?
_____ Remove repeated ideas?
9. Assessment: To assess the student's comprehension by using the summarizing strategy, I will monitor them while they are working on their webs. I will also print off the article Birthday Party Project Brings Kids Joy One Party At A Time. This article tells us about children who do not celebrate the day they were born on like we do. I will ask the students to read the article and answer a few questions: 1. What is the Birthday Party Project? 2. How did Paige Chenault think of the idea? 3. How many parties has the non-profit organized in the last three years? [I will ask the students to turn in their summary webs, answers to summary checklist, and I will complete the following checklist for each child]:
Name:
Did the student clearly understand the passage? Yes or No
Did the student find the main topic? Yes or No
Was the student able to recall important facts? Yes or No
Did the student eliminate unimportant/repeated information? Yes or No
　
Resources:
Jackson, Betsy: Reading for Wisdom
