Mr. Bolan's Lesson Designs

Rationale:  Reading is often the first step for students to learn new information. In order for learning to occur, the student must be able to comprehend the text. Summarizing is a skill that all beginning readers need to practice in order to be successful in reading comprehension. Students who know how to summarize are able to recall and identify the main ideas of a passage. In this lesson, students will be taught the key skills needed to summarize the information they read in an article. By providing students with this instruction, they will gain experience in summarization and eventually, be able to summarize any text simply by reading it once. Through the skill of summarizing, students’ reading comprehension will increase as texts that were once too large or wordy will be seen as opportunities to use their new strategies.

 

Materials: Pencils (one for every student), Yellow highlighter for each student, Blue highlighter for each student, Smartboard (or whiteboard), Document Camera (or overhead projector), Summarizing rules bookmark, Copy of “Scientists in Costume” for each student and teacher, Copy of “An Overdue Spacewalk” for each student and teacher, Lined paper for each student to write down summaries, Assessment Chart (example attached)

 

Procedures:

1.) Today we are going to learn about a new reading technique that good readers use to understand what they read. Who knows what summarize means? Very good! To summarize means to find the most important information in a story. In other words, when you summarize you focus on the main ideas and ignore the tiny little details. We are going to learn how to summarize so that you all can be great readers!

 

2.) Now that we know what summarization is, let’s talk about how you summarize. I am passing out a special bookmark I like to use called ‘Summarizing Rules.’ [Display summarizing rules bookmark on the document camera]. This special paper has the steps I take to help me summarize while I read. The first rule of summarizing is delete unimportant or repeated information. This means that if you find information in the text that is not really important to the meaning of the text, you may draw a line through out. The second rule of summarizing is to find important information. This means that when you see information that you think is important to know, underline or highlight it. The third rule of summarizing is to write a topic sentence using the information you noted as begin important. This sentence should capture all the important parts of a paragraph within a text. 

 

3.) [Pass out copies of Scientists in Costume, and display a copy on the document camera.] I am handing out an article titled “Scientists in Costume” that we are going to use to practice summarizing as a class. This article is from National Geographic Kids. Scientists have been donning crazy costumes for their research. What do you think? What types of research do you think the scientists are dressing up for? We are going to find out in a second, but first, there are a few vocabulary words that we might need to know before reading this passage. The first word is “replicate”. Does anyone know what “replicate” means? Replicate means to copy exactly. Replicate is often used to describe scientific results. If one scientist can replicate what the other scientist did, that is evidence that the experiment worked. Can a piano play replicate a song he has memorized? Of course! The piano player plays all of the notes in exactly the same way the original tune was. Help me finish this sentence; the chemist tried to replicate… Very good! The chemist tried to replicate the reaction from the same formula as her friend! [Do this with following words: variations, spooked, colleagues, outfitted, and attachment. As you go through the words, write them on the smart board.]

 

4.) Now that we know those important vocabulary words, let’s see if we can practice summarizing an article together. Part of summarizing involves asking yourself questions about what you are reading as you read. Let me show you an example of what I am talking about. As I read a passage I am going to ask myself: What is this text about? What are some main facts? What is the author’s purpose? After I answer these questions and look at my summarization rules, I can summarize the text! [Use the first two paragraphs of Scientists in Costume to model for the class how to summarize.] Lets read the first paragraph of Scientists in Costume together as a class. Let’s think about how we would summarize this passage. First, what is this article talking about? What subject seems to be mentioned the most? Wearing costumes to work with animals, good job! How did you know that’s what the article was talking about from only reading the title and first two paragraphs? Exactly, the title of the article is going to tell us the main idea and the first paragraph is introducing that idea to us. Now that we know what the main idea is, we need to highlight the important details. How do I know what is important? Since our topic is “scientists in costume” we need to pick out the information pertaining to the scientists and the reasons they are wearing costumes. Let’s go ahead and highlight the main idea in this paragraph with our blue highlighters. [Have copy of article under document camera so students can watch as you highlight]. [Highlight main idea in blue] Now let’s go through and look for our important details. This can be tricky, but remember we are only focusing on the main ideas! Let’s look at the first sentence containing part of the main idea. [Highlight in yellow the details] Let’s use our yellow highlighter to mark the details. Now, we need to go through and mark out the parts of the paragraph that aren’t important and/or that repeat themselves. These could be descriptions, definitions, repetition, or extra information that doesn’t go with the main point. [Go through rest of the paragraphs crossing out with pencil non-important information.] Now that we have eliminated parts that aren’t necessary and have highlighted the important details, we need to find a topic sentence. Please read over the highlighted parts of this paragraph. If I wanted to write a topic sentence about the important information in the paragraph, I could use the highlighted words in the paragraph to help me! Let me try to put them together: [Write sentence on smart board.]

 

5.) Great job! Now, lets continue practicing how to summarize with the rest of the article. Because we are working with multiple paragraphs now, it is very important to be looking for the most important information. [Read rest of the article together as a class and walk students through how to summarize the paragraphs. Begin to back off and allow students to explore how to summarize. Be sure to still provide assistance, though, and go over each section after students have spent time working to ensure that they are on the right path.]

 

6.) Great work. Y’all are becoming supreme summarizers! Now that we have practice summarizing an article together, I want you to try on your own! This article is from TIME Kids and is about people who work in outer-space. Can anyone tell me what they are called? That’s right, astronauts! Once I give you a copy of the article, go ahead and start reading to find out why the astronauts are walking in space! If you get stuck summarizing, remember to look at your bookmark for help!

 

Assessment: To assess the students on the process of summarizing, I will review each student’s topic sentence as well as the markings on their articles. I will use the checklist provided below for each student to decide if they understand the rules of and how to summarize. Topic sentences should capture the most important information and leave out insignificant information. 

 

Sample Comprehension Questions:

1.) Why did the astronauts have to make a spacewalk?

2.) What caused spacewalks to be halted for over a year on the ISS?

3.) Would you want to do spacewalks if you were an astronaut?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources:

Clarke, Kate. “Super Summarizers” https://sites.google.com/site/kmc0044ctrd/home/reading-to-learn-lesson

 

Plasket, K. (2014, October 8). News. Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://www.timeforkids.com/news/overdue-spacewalk/182331

 

Scientists in Costume. (2014, October 30). Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/content/kids/en_US/explore/nature/scientists-in-costume/

 

Picture retrieved from: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/06/article-1336070-0C5D86B2000005DC-889_634x382.jpg

 

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Questions? Concerns? Email me at gjb0002@auburn.edu

 

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