The Power to Summarize
Ashton Wells
Rationale:
Comprehension is the ultimate goal in a student’s reading development. When a student reads for comprehension, they are no longer spending time decoding words. They are able to automatically recognize the words and thus read for comprehension and understanding. A great way to test a student’s comprehension is to get them to summarize a selected text. In this lesson, learn and practice summarization as a comprehension strategy. The students will summarize text by using the following summarization rules: detect and mark out unimportant or repeated information, find and highlight important information, and form a topic sentence from the important information.
Materials:
Assessment Checklist:
Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist.
________ Collected important information
________ Ignored unnecessary information in summary
________ Significantly reduced the text from the original
________ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
________ Sentences correctly used vocabulary terms if present
Comprehension Quiz:
Name: _________________________
“The Power of Plants” article:
http://easyscienceforkids.com/the-power-of-plants/
Hall, Sydney. “Swimming Into Summarization”:
http://slh0043.wixsite.com/misshallswebsite/reading-to-learn
Reading Genie:
www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/horizons.html
Ashton Wells
Rationale:
Comprehension is the ultimate goal in a student’s reading development. When a student reads for comprehension, they are no longer spending time decoding words. They are able to automatically recognize the words and thus read for comprehension and understanding. A great way to test a student’s comprehension is to get them to summarize a selected text. In this lesson, learn and practice summarization as a comprehension strategy. The students will summarize text by using the following summarization rules: detect and mark out unimportant or repeated information, find and highlight important information, and form a topic sentence from the important information.
Materials:
- Paper for each student
- Pencils for each student
- Highlighters for each student
- Individual copies of the article: “The Power of Plants” (URL below)
- SmartBoard or white board and writing utensil for teacher use
- Poster of Summarizing Rules:
- Delete and mark out unimportant or repeated information
- Find and highlight important information
- Form a topic sentence from the important information
- Assessment Checklist
- Comprehension Quiz
- Say: Has anyone ever enjoyed a book or movie and wanted to tell your friends all about it? How were you able to fill them in on the action? Did you tell them every little unnecessary detail or did you only tell them the main important points? [Call on a student who has their hand raised.] Yes, that’s right, you only told them the important parts, this is called summarizing. We use summarizing to help us comprehend and understand the things we read! If you can summarize a book or an article, then that lets me know you understand the material that you have read and you are progressing as a reader!
- Say: However, when we are summarizing texts we have some rules to make it easier. [Hold up poster with summarizing rules and hang somewhere in the classroom for students to refer back to.] First, we must find the unnecessary information and get rid of it! To do that, we read through the entire article and delete any information that is unrelated or repeated anywhere in the text. Next, we highlight, underline, or circle the things that seem like they are important to the main point of the text! Lastly, we take all the important parts of the text and we create a topic sentence to help us begin our summarization.
- Say: An easy way to create topic sentences is to find an “umbrella term” that covers and relates to all the ideas in the text! An example of this would be if I was reading a passage that told me about different types of trees, flowers, and cacti, my umbrella term could be plants! Trees, flowers, and cacti are all different types of plants that the article talks about!
- Say: Now, I’m going to model how I’d use these summarization guidelines with the first paragraph of an article about types of plants with super powers that we are going to read today. I bet you thought plants just sat still and looked pretty? Have you ever thought that some plants can kill and shoot poison? You’re going to get to find out all about the many types of super powers certain plants possess!
- Say: Here is the first paragraph from the article: “Powerful? Plants aren’t powerful, you say. They must stay in one place and depend on the sun and rain for their survival. That’s true, but did you know plants have powerful chemicals inside them? Many plants have healing powers and have been used for thousands of years for medicine. In fact, most of the medicines we have today are made from plants or chemicals with similar properties.” This paragraph is an introduction as to how plants are the basis of the medicines we use to save people’s lives. Was there any information that you thought was unnecessary in this passage? What about that part we just talked about at the beginning? No? That’s right. We can delete the part where it reminds us that plants are stable and depend on sun and rain for survival. We already know this obvious information. We can delete this unnecessary reminder. Now, if I look at the information that is left, I can come up with an umbrella term for all this information to go under. I think the main message of this passage is that scientists are telling us the ways we use plants in everyday life and how they help us. Now, I’m going to make my umbrella term “Plant Chemicals”. Using the information that is left and my umbrella term, I can make a really good topic sentence: “Plants chemicals have a lot of power and our used in our everyday life to help us out.” Now I have a good topic sentence to summarize that paragraph to help me later summarize the entire article!
- Say: Before you read the rest of the article, let’s go over some of our vocabulary words. These words will help you have a better understanding of the meaning of the article. Vocabulary List: Heal- make better (Example Sentence: The warm tea helped heal my sore throat.) Yarrow- a plant with yellow, white or pink flowers that grows wild in fields (Example Sentence: The yarrow flower has beautiful yellow leaves.) Antibacterial- destroys bacteria (Example Sentence: The antibacterial soap helped clean all the germs from my hands.) Bundle- package (Example Sentence: MY mother bought me a bundle of roses for my birthday.) Plague- a serious illness that killed many people hundreds of years ago (Example Sentence: During the plague was a rough time and many people grew ill and died.). [The following is an example of a vocabulary review for the word “heal”: First, define the word and read the example sentence above. Then ask sample questions using the word and have students complete sentence fragments.] I. What is an example of something that heals a sore throat? ii. Is it good to heal from a cold or sickness? iii. Medicine heals my headache because it helps me... iv. A way to heal a stomach ache may be to...
- Say: Now it is your turn to practice summarizing with the rest of the article “The Power of Plants”. Let’s read the rest of the article and see if plants can hurt us just as much as they help us! I want you to delete unimportant information and highlight key facts from the passage, create a topic sentence, and then write a paragraph summarizing the article. Be sure to look at our summarizing rules if you forget anything. Also, be sure you use your own words and not the author’s. Summarization works best when you take notes as you go. Taking notes will help you pick out and remember the main ideas easier. Be sure to ask questions if anything is confusing about the article and we will discuss it! We’ll be having a quiz once everyone is done writing and you’ll turn your work into me! [Walk around to be sure students are following the summarization rules and answer any questions they may have about the article and assignment.]
Assessment Checklist:
Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist.
________ Collected important information
________ Ignored unnecessary information in summary
________ Significantly reduced the text from the original
________ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
________ Sentences correctly used vocabulary terms if present
Comprehension Quiz:
Name: _________________________
- What plant did Achilles’ soldiers use in Greek mythology to heal battle wounds?
- What properties did Lavender have that doctors believed would help them be safe from the plague?
- What berries were mentioned that are poisonous and can make you very sick?
- Name one common plant that could be growing in your back yard that is poisonous.
- It is made from tobacco that can be used to kill bugs?
“The Power of Plants” article:
http://easyscienceforkids.com/the-power-of-plants/
Hall, Sydney. “Swimming Into Summarization”:
http://slh0043.wixsite.com/misshallswebsite/reading-to-learn
Reading Genie:
www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/horizons.html