Reading to Learn
What Students Do In Summary
By: Hannah Deaver
Rationale: After children have learned to read accurately and fluently, they must move on to the next step in reading. The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension, and the next step in reading is reading for the purpose of learning. This lesson focuses on summarizing, a strategy that will help students begin reading to learn. It will help students learn to summarize by teaching them to delete trivial and repetitive information. Instead they will focus on the important parts of a selected text.
Materials:
Class set (and copy for the teacher) of the NASA (2007) article “Why Do We Study the Sun?”
Blank bookmark shaped sun
Markers (1 pack for each group of students)
Poster with summarizing rules
Delete trivia and redundancies
Superordinate items and events
Compose a topic sentence
Overhead projector or SmartBoard
Paper and pencil for each student
Reading Comprehension Questions:
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Why does our solar system need the sun?
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What happens on the sun that is dangerous for planet Earth?
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After reading this article about the sun, why do you think the sun is constantly changing?
Assessment Chart:
Did the student do the following: Yes No
Get rid of unimportant information?
Get rid of repeated information?
Underline the important information?
Write an organized topic sentence using
only the important information?
Procedure:
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“Today we’re going to talk about a strategy to help us comprehend what we’re reading. Who can remember what it means to comprehend? (Call on a student.) That’s right! It does mean to understand the message of what you’re doing. I hope that by the end of this lesson you will be able to summarize texts very easily. Summarizing a text means to pick out the most important information and then put it into a short paragraph or essay. It is so important to learn how to summarize because we use these every day. When I read a good book and I want to share it with you, I have to think about what happened in the book and then give you a summary.”
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“ Before we learn more about how to summarize, let’s review what we’ve been talking about recently. Who can tell me what we have been talking about in science? (Allow a student to answer this question.) Exactly! We have been talking about scientists. Let’s go over some of the vocabulary that we have been talking about. We said that a scientist is someone who studies or knows a lot about the subject of science. You can say, “The scientist performed an experiment to test the amount of light a plant needs.” Which of these could be a scientist? A doctor, an astronomer, or an athlete? (Call on a student to answer.) Correct! An astronomer could be a scientist because he probable has to study or know a lot about the science of stars. We also talked about experiments. An experiment is a test or trial in order to discover something new or prove something to be true. You can say, “The class did an experiment to see if a golf ball will sink or float.” Which one of these would not be an experiment? If a ping pong ball will roll down a ramp faster or slower than a bouncy ball, writing a creative book, or mixing water and vegetable oil? (Call on a student to answer.) Correct! Writing a book is not an experiment because you are not testing anything or trying to see if something is true.
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Let’s go back to summarizing. (Display the poster with summarizing rules.) You all have sun shaped bookmarks and markers on your desk. I want you to copy down each rule as we talk about it. I’ll give you a few minutes at the end of the lesson to decorate your bookmark. This way you will have the rules of summarization with you whenever you read! The first rule of summarizing is “delete trivia and redundancies.” Go ahead and write that down (give students time to write). This means that if you see something that’s not really important to the meaning of the text or something you have already marked as important; you may draw an X through it (if it’s in a printed article) or mentally delete it (if it’s in a textbook). The second rule of summarizing is to “superordinate items and events.” Go ahead and right that down too! This means that when you see something you think is important you can underline it or write down a key word or sentence. The third rule of summarizing is to “compose a topic sentence.” You can add this to your bookmark (give students time to write). This is little bit more challenging, but we are going to practice it together. The third rule means that once you have found the most important parts of the text you put them together to create a topic sentence. This topic sentence has all of the most important parts of a paragraph in the text.
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Pass out copies of “Why Do We Study the Sun?” and display a copy on the SmartBoard or overhead projector. Give a booktalk for the article by saying “This article is about the sun and why it is so important for not only the Earth but also our entire solar system. Many scientists have done lots of research on the sun. Why do you think it is so important to study about the sun? Let’s read the article and find out!
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Now we are going to practice summarizing as a class. Let’s look at the first paragraph of our article:
We look at the sun rising every day. It’s bright, it’s big and it warms us up. Our sun happens to be the brightest object in our universe and naturally we are really curious to know more about it.
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I want everyone to follow along with me and pay attention to how I follow these rules. Let’s look at the very first sentence: We look at the sun rising every day. Do you think it’s important to know that the sun rises every day? (Discuss.) It is important to know that the sun rises every morning, but for the purpose of understanding why we study the sun we don’t really need this information. (Make an X through this sentence.) Let’s continue reading the next sentence: It’s bright, it’s big, and it warms us up. Hmm…what parts of this sentence are important for my understanding? I think that the part about the sun keeping us warm is important so I’m going to underline that part. I’ll make an X through “It’s bright” and “it’s big” because we already know this information and not that important. Alright, let’s move to the last sentence: Our sun happens to be the brightest object in our universe and naturally we are really curious to know more about it. We should underline the part about the sun being the brightest object in our universe and we can put an X through the rest of the sentence.
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Now that we have applied rules 1 and 2 of summarizing to this paragraph, I’m going to demonstrate how to use rule number 3. This rule says that we need to create a topic sentence using the underlined parts. I’ve got that the sun keeps us warm and is the brightest object in our universe. Now I just need to make this into a sentence that makes sense. So my topic sentence will be: The sun is the brightest object in the universe and it keeps us warm.
Ask: “Does everyone understand what I just did? Does anyone have any questions?”
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Now I’m going to let you all practice summarizing with the rest of this article. I would like for you to go through each paragraph and break it down like we just did. Be sure to follow the summarization rules and then change the order of your topic sentence if necessary so it makes sense. You only have to write one topic sentence for each paragraph. You may copy the sentence that we came up with for the first paragraph, and then you will write 5 more topic sentences of your own. Once you are finished you can staple the article to your paper with your topic sentences and turn it in. Then you may decorate your bookmark. Everyone will have time to decorate their bookmark so please do not rush to finish writing your topic sentences.
Assessment:
I will review each student’s topic sentences and their marks on the article. I will use the assessment checklist (in the materials) to make sure all of the students followed the summarization rules and understood this assignment. Their topic sentences for each of the last 5 paragraphs may vary slightly, but that’s alright as long as they included the most important parts of the paragraph.
I will also ask the following comprehension questions:
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Why does our solar system need the sun?
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What happens on the sun that is dangerous for planet Earth?
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After reading this article about the sun, why do you think the sun is constantly changing?
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Resources:
Bolan, Greg. “The Supreme Summarizers.” http://gregbolan.wix.com/reading-lessons#%21page4/c32q
Google Search. “Sun Outline.” http://www.123rf.com/photo_7267706_outlined-summer-sun.html
Walden, Haleigh. “Flying through Summarization.” https://sites.google.com/site/waldenswonderfullessons/home/flying-through-summarization
“Why Do We Study the Sun?” from NASA Exploring the Universe, Our Solar System (30 Nov. 2007). https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/sun_for_kids_main.html
