Miss Richards' Lesson Designs

Rationale: Reading comprehension is an critical final step in a student’s reading development. When a student reads for comprehension, they are focused more on understanding that the take away is from the text that they are reading instead of just decoding words. A great way to test how well a student can comprehend a text is to get them to summarize a book that they have read. In this lesson, students will practice summarization as a comprehension strategy. The students will summarize text by selecting important information and eliminating unnecessary details. Students will use 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. The teacher will model how students detect important information that is needed to write an effective summary.

 

Materials:

Paper for each student

• Pencils for each student

• Highlighters for each student

• Sample passage on board (from The Science of the Seasons for Kids)

• Copies of article: The Science of the Seasons for Kids (one for every child)

• Dry-erase board and markers for teacher use

• Poster of Summarizing Rules:

      1.  Delete and mark out unimportant or repeated information

      2.    Find and highlight important information

      3.    Form a topic sentence from the important information

• Assessment Checklist

• Comprehension Quiz

 

Prodedures: Say: Can anyone tell me if they have ever read a book that you liked so much that you told your friend about it? Did you tell them every little detail, or did you just tell them the important parts that you read? [Call on a student who has their hand raised.] Yes, that’s right, you only told them the important parts of the story! This is called summarizing. Summarizing is a skill that can help us to better understand the books we read; therefore, making us better readers! If you can summarize a book or an article, then that lets me know you understand the material that you have read and are therefore learning. 

 

2. Say: When using summarization skills, we have a few rules that we have to follow. [Hold up poster with summarizing rules and hang somewhere in the classroom for students to refer back to.] First, we need to get rid of any unimportant information in the text. To do that, we read through the entire article and then we go back and cross out any information that is unnecessary or is repeated anywhere in the text. Then, we highlight, underline, or circle the things that seem really important to us! Finally, we take all of those important parts of the article or story and we create a topic sentence to begin our summary. 

 

3. Say: A really good way to summarize and create topic sentences is to find an “umbrella term” that all of the ideas in a passage can fall under! An example of this would be if I was reading a passage that told me about spring, summer, fall, and winter; my umbrella term could be seasons, because spring, summer, fall, and winter are the four seasons and that is what the passage is about!

 

4. Say: Now lets practice! I’ve given you all an article from The Science of the Seasons for Kids. We’re going to read the first paragraph together, and I’ll show you how to summarize then, you will summarize the rest of the article on your own! We’re going to be investigative scientists as we read this article and see what all we can learn about the seasons. Follow along with me as I read the first paragraph out loud.

 

5. Okay, who can give me a brief summary of what you read? (Give students a chance to show their summaries, offer help when they need it. Also, write down some of their ideas on the whiteboard.) Let’s take a look at my copy of this paragraph on the white board. Do you see how I highlighted some important details and crossed out those details that were not important to the story. (Model the sample below).

 

“We divide up the year into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Each season lasts 3 months with summer being the warmest season, winter being the coldest, and spring and autumn lying in between.”

 

6. Say: Remember, our first sentence will tell us what the paragraph will be about. We know that this paragraph will tell us about how the seasons. I highlighted that summer being the warmest season, winter being the coldest, and spring and autumn lying in between, but I crossed out Each season lasts 3 months. In summarizing, some information is more important than others, and by practicing we can get better at knowing which information that is. There isn’t always one right answer, so just try and do your best. 

 

7. Say: Before you read the rest of the article, let’s go over some of our vocabulary words. Being familiar with new vocabulary words will help you have a better understanding of the meaning of the article.

 

[The following is an example of a vocabulary review for the word orbit: 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 does it mean to orbit?

ii.   How many days does it take for the earth to orbit the sun?

 

9.Say: Now I want you to practice summarizing with the rest of the article.  Let’s read the rest of the article to learn more about the seasons and practice summarizing.  I want you to delete and highlight things from the passage, create a topic sentence, and then write a paragraph summarizing the main points of the article. Be sure to look at our summarizing rules if you forget anything. Also, be sure that this summary is in your own words and not your neighbor’s or the author’s. Summarization works best when you read the article slow, read the important parts at least two times, and take notes and highlight as you go. Taking notes will help you point out the main ideas easier. Be sure to ask questions if anything is confusing about the article and we will discuss it! The main idea of this article is seasons, so look for facts about seasons that would help us get to know them better; we want to know things like where they live and what they eat! We’ll be having a quiz once everyone is done writing and you’ll turn all of 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.

________ Highlighted important information

 

________ Significantly reduced (by crossing out) original text

 

________ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

 

________ Sentences organized coherently into essay form

 

 

 

Comprehension Quiz:

 

Name: _________________________

 

1.    What is the oder that the seasons come in?

 

 2.    Why do seasons occur?

 

 3.    How often does the earth orbit the sun? 

 

 

 

References: 

• “The Science of the Seasons for Kids.” Ducksters Educational Site, www.ducksters.com/

science/seasons.php.

 

• Huckaby, Madison. Buzzing to Summarization.  https://mrh0057.wixsite.com/mysite-4/reading-to-learn

 

• Runya, Haylee. Swimming into Summarization. https://hayrunyan.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn