ABC

 

Summarizing in the Sea!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading to Learn

Savannah Duke

 

 

Rationale:

In order to become an expert reader, we must first learn how to comprehend what we are reading. Fortunately, summarization and comprehension go hand-in-hand. Summarization, meaning the process of the reader taking out small details and focusing on the main ideas of the reading, is a comprehension strategy. This process narrows down the text and creates a summary. Through this lesson, students will learn strategies on how to summarize. The students will have the opportunity to practice their summarization skills after reading the whole text. They will do so by using highlighters and a black marker.

 

Materials:

-Poster with summarization rules on it:

            1. Get rid of unimportant information.

            2.  Get rid of repeated information.

            3. Substitute umbrella words for list words.

            4. Select a topic.

            5. Make up a topic sentence if there is not one.

-Paper

-Pencil

-Black marker for each student

-Highlighter for each student

-Copy of  "Octopus Adventures" for each student

-Copy of “Take a Hike, Litterbugs” for each student

-Summarization Checklist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Procedures:

1. Say: "Today we are going to learn how to summarize. Summarizing is going to help you better comprehend what you read. What do you all think it means to summarize what you read? That’s right! Summarization is when you read a passage or piece of text and take all the small details so that you are left with the main idea of the text. So let’s review some things we have learned about reading first. Then, we will talk more about what it means to summarize as well as some of the rules of summarizing.”

2. Start the lesson by reviewing some of the vocabulary in the article.

Say: “Today we are going to be reading an article about octopuses.  In the article, we will discover some new words. So, before we start reading, I want to introduce and define these words so when we read them, we will understand what they mean. The words I am going to explain are: fascinating, veterinarian, and difficulty.” Define each of these words in the following way:

The first word is fascinated.  Fascinated is used to express a great interest or attraction to something. Now I will use it in a sentence. The woman was fascinated by the funnel shaped wind she saw dip from the sky. It could also be used like this: After watching a performance the young girl became fascinated with the movements of a dancer. Fascinated would not be used like this: Sue was clearly fascinated by her friends’ conversations as she sat staring out the window. This doesn’t really work because Sue is uninterested in her friends’ converstaions.  A fascination is anything that draws and holds your attention for an extended period of time. For example I could watch the ocean crash and move for hours because the movement and depths of the ocean fascinates me. Now, let's see if we can figure out what is fascinating in this next sentence. If Sally spends her entire Saturday sitting under a tree and reading a book, what is fascinating her?  Good!  Sally was probably fascinated by the book she was reading.  Hopefully now you all have a better understanding of the word fascination so lets try and come up with our own sentence using it.

3. Next, explain and display the poster with the summarization rules. Talk about each of the rules one by one before practicing them in a real paragraph. Explain just how each rule is going to help them summarize their reading.

4. Read the following paragraph from "Octopus Adevntures" to the students and model how to summarize.

Say: "Here is an excerpt from an article from Times For Kids called Octopus Adventure. I am going to read this paragraph aloud. Please follow along silently as I read.

 

‘In her new book, The Octopus Scientists: Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk, she takes readers underwater off the islands of Moorea and Tahiti to follow an exciting journey led by octopus researchers. The pages are filled with underwater photos that explore these fascinating creatures, which can shoot ink, change color, and squeeze themselves through tiny holes. They are also exceptionally smart. “What fascinates me about them is that we’re so different, and yet their intelligence is in many ways similar to our own,” she told TFK. “You could not find a space alien stranger, more different from us than an octopus, but here it is right on our planet, even living in shallow water.”’

 

Okay, now let's look at this paragraph. Our first rule tells us to get rid of unimportant information so I'm going to take my big black marker and cross out the unimportant information. We are going to cross out the information on location. It's good to know where the research was conducted but it is not necessary information for this reading. Since there is no repeated information in this paragraph we can move on to the next rule, which is making an "umbrella" for some of our words. We are going to make an umbrella with the words "shoot ink, change color, squeeze thorough tiny holes, exceptionally smart, and their intelligence is similar to ours.” We will umbrella those sentences into one as well. Our next rules say to select a topic and make a topic sentence. Our topic is going to be octopuses. For our topic sentence I am going to write, "Octopuses are extremely intelligent, in some ways similar to ours, they can also change colors, shoot ink, and fit into tight places.”

5. Say: "Now that you see how to summarize, I am going to give each of you a copy of another article called " Take a Hike, Litterbugs ".  I want you all to try to summarize but I will be here to help. Did you know that an average hiker produces 18 pounds of garbage on their trek up Mt. Everest?  This article will some changes being made that will prevent hikers from littering on their way up and down Mt. Everest. To find out more about the regulations being put into place, read the article. Read it silently to yourself and use the black markers and highlighters to do the same thing we just did together. Once you have read through and made your marks, we will go over what we all believe is information we would need to use to summarize. Then, I want you to get a piece of paper and a pencil and write a sentence of the summarized information. 

 

Assessment:

For the assessment portion I will be using the summarization rules checklist. Students will be evaluated on their ability to correctly use the summarization rules and strategies to get rid of unimportant or repeated information and make a short summary of what they have read. I will also ask the students questions such as "What are some things you learned about Mt. Everest?” and "What did you learn about the people that hike Everest?" and  "Why is keeping it clean important?”

 

Resources:

 

“Octopus Adventures”

http://www.timeforkids.com/news/octopus-adventures/228671

 

“Take a Hike, Litterbugs!”

http://www.timeforkids.com/news/take-hike-litterbugs/155651

 

Moore, Lydia

https://sites.google.com/site/lydiasreadinglessons/home/summing-it-up

 

Handoffs Index

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Handoffs.html