Reading To Learn

By: Katie Jones

 

Rationale: As children become more fluent and accurate readers, it is important to begin teaching them comprehension and recall skills.  This lesson models summarizing text and provides students with the opportunity to summarize what they are reading.  When a student is able to summarize a text they capture the meaning of the article.  This demonstrates their comprehension strategies. Summarization is an important skill to teach maturing readers. This lesson will also demonstrate how an outline of an article can help summarize as well.

 

Materials:

• “A Powerful Storm” article from Time for Kids (one copy for each child) http://www.timeforkids.com/news/powerful-storm/466291

• paper

• pencils

• whiteboard

• whiteboard markers

• dictionaries for every child

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “How many of you have read a whole article or book and when asked to explain it have a hard time remembering what it is about?  The ability to say in a few words or sentences what a whole article or book is about is called summarization. Today we are going to read and summarize an article from Time for Kids.

​

2. (Pass out articles) Say: “What can you tell me about Hurricanes? Hurricanes happen all over the world and can cause great damage. Today we are going to read about a recent Hurricane Matthew”

​

3. Say: “I would like everyone to read this article silently to themselves.  Silent reading is important because people can read at their own pace.  You can read fast over trivial details and read slowly and underline important facts.  If you come across a word that you do not know stop reading and look it up in the dictionary.”

​

4. Say: “There is a lot of information in this article. There is no way that a person can memorize everything presented in this article by reading it just a few times. It is important when summarizing to pick out the most important information presented by leaving out the trivial details.  An example of a trivial detail would be ‘U.S. authorities have evacuated families of U.S. service members living on the military base, transporting them to Florida.’ Although this is an interesting fact, it is not one of the main points that the author is trying to make. Can someone raise their hand and read another example of a trivial detail in the article.” (Wait for children to respond)

​

5. Say: “To help us summarize this article we are going to make an outline on the board with the title and subheadings from the article. Who can explain to me what a subheading is? Who can tell me the title?  What is the first subheading?  (Continue writing outline on the board) How do you think an outline can help us summarize an article?”  (Children respond)

​

6. Assessment Say:  “I would like everyone now to get out a piece of paper and a pencil.  We are going to write a brief paragraph summarizing what this article is about.  Remember when summarizing it is important to leave out the trivial details and just put the main points the author is trying to make or the "chunk" of the information. Concentrate on writing a short and concise paragraph but do not leave out any main points.”

Here is an example how to summarize one of the paragraphs. 

Hurricanes are categorized 1 through 5, based on wind speed. A Category 4 storm, such as Matthew, has wind speeds between 130 and 156 miles per hour (mph). With 130-mph winds, Matthew is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history. It briefly reached Category 5 strength (157 mph winds or higher), making it the strongest storm since Felix, in 2007.

Ask yourself questions like:

How are hurricanes categorized? What category is hurricane Matthew considered? 

By asking yourself important questions from the text you can decide what facts are important and which are not. This is also an opportunity to look up any vocabulary words you do not know. 

To assess, I will use the checklist listed below to grade the students summarizing skills.

When summarizing, did the student:

Delete unimportant information?

Delete repeated information?

Select a topic?

Write an inclusive, accurate, simple topic sentence to summarize the passage?

 

Reference:

"Whooz-z-z Can Summarize." Mary Rouse, http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/insights/rouserl.html

​

By Laura Blackburn with AP Reporting. "News." A Powerful Storm. Laura Blackburn, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2016. http://www.timeforkids.com/news/powerful-storm/466291