Leaping into Summarization
Reading to Learn
Rationale:
Summarization is one of the most powerful strategies when it comes to comprehending a text. An effective method of summarizing is to ask two questions: what is the text about, and what is the main point the writer is trying to make. This lesson is centered on teaching students how to summarize by eliminating trivial information that is constantly repeated. This leaves us with only the important facts.
Materials:
-
Class set of the article “American Bullfrog” from duckster.com (URL below)
-
Poster with the rules of summarization on it
-
Assessment checklist of summarization rules (see below)
-
Comprehension quiz (see below)
-
Pencil and paper
-
Over head projector
Procedures:
1. Say: “Raise your hand if you've ever read an article or a book and recommended it to a friend. Do you read the whole book to them or do you just tell them the important parts of what you read? RIght! You only tell them the important parts of the story. When you only tell them the important parts, this is called summarizing. Summarization is a very helpful strategy good readers use to comprehend and understand what they have read. If you are able to summarize a book, then that is a really good indicator that you understand what you have read.
2. Say: Before we practice summarizing, lets review what we learned about frogs earlier this week. What are some things we learned about frogs? Yes, they are amphibians and are born in water. What else did we learn? That right! Frogs do start out as tadpoles that look more like fish. Remember we talked about how the female frog lays her eggs in the water and they hatch into tadpoles. What one last thing we learned about frogs? Correct! There are many different types of frogs!
3. Say: I am so proud of how much y’all remembered about frogs! To keep up the good work, today we are going to learn about one of those types – the American Bull frog! Everyone take out a piece of paper and turn it sideways. Take a pencil and draw two lines to make three columns. Great job, everyone! Now lets take a look at our “Rules of Summarizing” poster. Who can read the first rule for me? Yes, the first rule of summarizing is to delete the trivia, or unimportant information. We don't need to keep the repeated information in our summary. Lets all write that rule on the top of the first column on our paper. It is helpful to cross out the unimportant information if you are able to. If you can’t you will need to mental mark the information. This will help you understand the message what the author is trying to get across. The second rule is to find the important information. Everyone write this rule at the top of the second column. When you find something that is important, underline it so you can go back and remember it is important. The final rule of summarization is to make a topic sentence. Please write this rule at the top of the third column. Making a topic sentience can be a bit tricky sometimes. A topic sentence combines all of the important information in a story way so you can summarize the paragraph you are about to read.
4. Say: Now we are going to summarize an article called “American Bullfrog.” This is one of the many types of frogs we talked about earlier this week. Who has ever seen a frog in the summer before? This article tells us all about what they eat and where live. Let’s read the article to see what else we can find out about the American Bullfrog!
5. Say: Now that we have read our summary, were there any words that seemed unfamiliar to you or you didn't know what the word meant? What about the word habitat? Who knows what that word means? A habitat is the environment or home in which an animal lives in. Lets use this word in a sentence. “A polar bear’s natural habitat is around the artic circle.” Could your house be a habitat? Indeed, it could! Now I want you to write a sentence with the work ‘habitat.’ Would anyone like to share his or her sentence? Great job! That was a wonderful sentence. Now lets start summarizing!
6. Say: Everybody watch me as I use my rules to summarize this paragraph (pull out teacher copy of the three columns). Let’s look at the first sentence: “The American Bullfrog is an amphibian and a large frog that lives in or near water.” (Point to each sentence as you read it on the overhead projector). Is it important that we know the American Bullfrog is an amphibian that lives in water? I think so because think so because it tells us about the frog. I am going to write that sentence under my second column of important information. The next sentence tells us the scientific name, but that's a big word that doesn't give us much information. I am going to write that sentence under the first column and cross it out. The second, third, and fourth sentence tell us where the American Bull frog lives. I think the third sentence is the most important so I am going to underline it and write it in my second column. However, I do not think the second and fourth sentence are as important, so I am going to cross them out and write them in my first column. Lets go on and look at the fifth and sixth sentence. Those sentences are really similar to the first sentence, so I do not think they are important. I am going to cross out those sentences and put them in the first column.
7. Say: Now that we have finished the first paragraph let’s try to create a topic sentence. Remember, the topic sentence is one sentence that explains what the paragraph is talking about. We only need to look at the second column for this. I have “The American Bullfrog is an amphibian and a large frog that lives in or near water. They range as far north as Canada and south into Mexico.” I could make this a topic sentence by saying: The American Bullfrog is a large amphibious frog that lives near water anywhere from Canada to Mexico. This sentence has all the important parts of the paragraph and is a good summary of the paragraph. Does anybody have any questions?
8. Say: Now I want you all to summarize the other paragraphs. Remember to write down the important and non-important information in each column to help you create your topic sentence. Feel free to look at our summarizing poster if you need help. Create a topic sentence for each paragraph and when you have finished, staple the article to your paper with your columns, and turn it in to me. We will have a short quiz once everyone is finished.
Assessment:
I will review each student’s columns to see if he or she could successfully summarize each paragraph and create a topic sentence. I will use the assessment checklist (see below) to record each child’s grade. Topic sentences may slightly vary, but I will be looking to see if the student included all the important information.
Comprehension Questions:
1. Where are you most likely to find a bullfrog?
2. What does a bullfrog look like?
3. What is something a bullfrog might eat?
4. Who can jump farther – a bullfrog or an eight year old boy?
Assessment Checklist:
Student Name: ___________________________________
1. Did the student fill out the chart on his or her paper?
2. Did the student come up with topic sentences for the remaining paragraphs?
3. Did the student successfully delete unimportant or redundant information?
4. Did the student successfully identify important parts?
5. Did the student use the important information to formulate a topic sentence?
Resources:
Jessica Sullivan, “Leaping with Kermit to Summurize” http://jps0033.wixsite.com/jpsullivanportfolio/reading-to-learn
“American Bullfrog” http://www.ducksters.com/animals/american_bullfrog.php
