Soaring the Plains into Summarization 

Reading to Learn

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RATIONALE

After readers learn to read fluently and correctly, they arrive at comprehension: the final step in becoming a successful reader. When students can comprehend what they are reading they can understand the message of the text. To do this, it is essential that students are able to tell the difference between important information in the text from the information that is less significant. The point of this lesson is to teach students to summarize, which is a skill that students need so that they can comprehend the text that they have just learned to fluently read. This lesson will teach students how to summarize the text as well as how to demonstrate their understanding of what they are reading.

 

MATERIALS

• Paper, pencil, highlighter for every student

• Summarization Checklist (write on the board for students to put on bookmark)

• Bookmark strips (construction paper) for summarization rules:

 1. Read the text

 2. Decide what sentences from the text are most important to finding the main idea

 3. Highlight the important information and take out minor details

 4. Find an umbrella term for everything that happens in the paragraph by using highlighted sentences.

 5. Write a summary sentence that explains what the text is about

• “Meerkats” article

• Summarization Grading Rubric (under assessment)

• Comprehension Questions

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PROCEDURES

1. Say: “Today, we are going to learn how to summarize! Does anyone know what it means to summarize? [wait for response] Good answers! When we summarize, we retell what we read in a way that encompasses the important parts of the story. In doing so, we are able to understand the main idea of the passage in a more clear, and concise manner”

2. Say: “There are many methods you can use to help become better at summarizing. Today we are going to learn the about-point method. When using this strategy, the reader asks themselves two questions: What is the text about? What is the main point the writer is trying to make? These questions are important to ask yourself while reading so you can pick out the important parts of the text. The second question is a little more complex. For the second question, you will need to combine all the important and key parts together.”

 

1. Say: “Before I start passing out the articles, does anyone know anything about meerkats?” (Allow time for students to respond) Yes, they are very small! About the size of a squirrel, actually. Now, let’s look at some vocabulary words that will help us understand the article a little better. Does anyone know what an omnivore is? (Allow time for students to respond). Yes! An omnivore is an organism that eats both plants and animals. Our next word is burrow. Does anyone know what this means? It can be used as either a verb or a noun... In this article, a burrow is a small hole dug in the ground by an animal for shelter and protection. Meerkats are prey animals so they often have to find their food quickly and strategically before going back into their burrow. Good job everyone! Now that we have a little context, I think we’re ready to start summarizing.”

 

1. Pass out the articles to each student. Say: “Now that you have received your article, I am going to start reading aloud and I want you to follow along. Now that we are done reading, what do we need to do? (allow time for answers) Correct! We need to pick out the important information. Let’s see what you all think is important from the reading. The article says, ‘Meerkats live in the deserts and grasslands of the southern tip of Africa.’. Do you think we should keep this? Yes, we should! Should we keep, ‘Meerkats only go outside during the daytime. Each morning, as the sun comes up, the mob emerges and begins looking for food.’ (Allow time for students to respond). Yes, this information is important but not all of it is needed. We need to go through this sentence and get rid of the information we don’t need. So instead of leaving the full sentence we can say: Meerkats only hunt in the daytime. Awesome job everyone!”

 

1. Say: “Now that we have worked on summarizing together, I want you to try by yourself. I want you to try the about-point strategy in this article. I want you to take your paper, pencil, and highlighter, and answer these two questions. (Write these two questions on the board) If you can’t remember them, refer to the white board. Ok, everyone get started!” 

 

1. Say: “Great! Now that everyone is done, we are going to take a comprehension quiz. This is going to see if you could remember the important parts of the article. After we finish the quiz we will have an assessment.” 

 

 

COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS 

1. Meerkats are omnivores, what do they like to eat?

2. What time of the day do meerkats go hunting? 

3. What do we call the space, meerkats live in?

4. What is the babysitter's main job? 

5. Are meerkats endangered? 

 

 

ASSESSMENT 

Collect each student’s summary of the article, and evaluate their summarization. 

 

____ Reduced text from the original 

____ Important information is included 

____ Organized summary into a paragraph 

____ Ignored less significant information

____ Contained ideas from each paragraph  

 

References: 

• “Meerkats” (Article)

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/meerkat

 

• “Swinging into Summarization” (Reading to Learn Lesson)

https://lauravlsims.wixsite.com/mssimsreadinglessons/reading-to-learn

 

• “Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea” (Reading to Learn Lesson) 

https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/reading-to-learn

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A Ready to Learn Lesson