Swinging into Summarization
By: Mary Baker Jones
Swinging into Summarization
Rationale:
After readers learn to read fluently and correctly, they arrive at comprehension, the final step in becoming a successful reader. When students can comprehend what they are reading they can understand the message of the text. To do this, it is essential that students are able tell the difference between important information in the text from the information that is less significant. The point of this lesson is to teach students to summarize, which is a skill that students need so that they can comprehend the text that they have just learned to fluently read. This lesson will teach students how to summarize the text as well as how to demonstrate their understanding of what they are reading.
Materials:
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Construction Paper and Markers
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Vocabulary Words [opposable, robust, prohibited] written on Whiteboard
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“Spider Monkey” National Geographic Kids Article
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Highlighter
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Summarization Creation Worksheet
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Pencil and Paper
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Comprehension Questions [1. Do spider monkeys have opposable thumbs? 2. What is the main thing spider monkeys like to eat? 3. How did the spider monkeys get their name?] written on Whiteboard
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Assessment Checklist
Procedure:
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Say: “Today we are going to learn something called summarization. Have any of you ever heard of summarizing? [allow time for students to answer]. “That’s right! Summarizing something means you are telling only the main parts of a story, not the entire thing. This skill is something that can be very helpful when we are wanting to comprehend, or understand what we are reading. So, today we are going to Swing into Summarization by reading an article about some swinging spider monkeys!
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Say: “Before I hand out the articles lets talk a little about spider monkeys. Does anyone already know anything about spider monkeys? [allow time for students to answer] “Yes, they can swing from tree to tree very quickly and they do sometimes look like spiders! Alright lets learn some vocabulary really quick to make sure we know what all the words in our article mean. The first vocab word is opposable. Has anyone ever heard of this word? I figured no one had because it is a tricky one! Opposable means that it is capable of being placed opposite to something. Once we read the article we will understand that one more. The next word is robust which means strong and healthy. If I were going to use that word in a sentence I would say: The boy has a robust mind. The last vocab word from this article is prohibited which means that something has been forbidden or banned. In other words, whatever is prohibited cannot be done any more. I have these vocabulary words written on the board in case you forget what they mean.
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[Hand out construction paper and markers] Say: “The last thing we need to do before we summarize our article is learn some rules that we need to follow in order to become great summarizers. These rules are short and easy to remember, but we need to write them down to make sure we don’t forget. At the top of your construction paper write Rules then under that write #1 Delete. What do yall think the first rule, delete means? [allow time to answer] “Correct, like we said earlier, when summarizing we don’t want to tell the whole story, so we are going to get rid or delete some of the information we do not think is important. Now lets write #2 shorten. What do we think shorten means when it comes to summarizing? [allow time to answer] “By shorten, we mean we are going to shorten the long parts. So, once we have deleted the parts that weren’t important and found the parts that were important, we are going to shorten those long important parts so that the passage can be easily and quickly understood. This can be a little confusing, so lets practice. If I gave you the sentence: *We talked about January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December during class today.* We could shorten it by saying *We talked about all of the months during class today* This way, we shortened our summary and kept the important ideas. The last rule we are going to write is #3 create. Once we have deleted the unimportant information and shortened the long parts, we will need to create a main idea sentence for the paragraph.
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[Pass out summarization creation worksheet] Say: “We are going to practice summarizing together first, then I am going to let yall try it on your own. I have just passed out a summarization creation worksheet that I want each of you to use while summarizing this article. In each column there you are going to write the main idea sentences that you create while summarizing.
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[Hand out spider monkey article] Say: “I have just given each of you a spider monkey article and I am going to read the it out loud while you follow along on your copy. Now that we have read the article what do you think we should do next? [allow time to answer] “Correct, we need to delete! The first sentence seems to be important, right? It says “Spider monkeys have long, thin arms with hook like hands that allow them to swing through the trees” This is something that is important, so we are not going to want to delete it. Instead, lets get our highlighters and highlight it so we remember that it is important! Now can someone find a sentence that seems to be less important? A sentence that we could maybe delete from our summary? [allow time to answer] “Yes! The sentence in the 5th paragraph that says ‘spider monkeys hug each other and wrap their tails around each other’ does not seem as important as the other information, so we can delete it. This sentence is a cute fact about spider monkeys, but I do not think we have to know that about them. Lets take our pencils and mark through it so we remember it is not an important sentence.
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Say: “Okay now that you have an idea of what summarizing an article looks like, I want you to finish summarizing this article on your own. I am going to walk around to make sure you are on the right track and I will be there to help you if you need it. When you have finished your summarization creating worksheet turn it in to me and begin working on the comprehension questions that I have written on the board.
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Once students have turned in their worksheets I will assess their work using the assessment checklist below.
Summarization Creation Worksheet:
Assesment Checklist:
Resources:
-“Spider Monkeys” (National Geographic Article)
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/spider-monkey/#spider-monkey-group-25880544.jpg
-Rules for Summarization by Carol Hryniuk-Adamov
-Jessie Floyd, Summarizing with Slow, Silly Sloths
https://jessiekfloyd.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/reading-to-learn
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Contact me: Mzj0027@auburn.edu
