Leap into Summarization

Charleigh Bailey

Reading to Learn Lesson

Rationale:

The overall goal of good reading is achieving reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand the message of a text that was read. If a student is reading for comprehension, he or she does not have to spend the time to decode words. The student can focus on understanding the message of the text that he or she is reading. A great way to test a student’s comprehension is to have the student summarize a book or passage that he or she has read.

In this lesson, students will practice summarization as a strategy to enhance reading comprehension. The students will summarize texts by pulling out important information from the text. Students will use summarization rules by marking out information that is not important or repeated, finding and highlighting important information, and describing the passage in a few sentences. For each paragraph, students will mark out trivial information, find an umbrella term(s), and summarize with one topic sentence. The teacher will model how to detect important information that is needed to write a summary.

Materials:

Paper
Pencils
Highlighters
Daily journals for notes
Individual copies of the article “Red-eyed Tree Frog“ by National Geographic Kids
Individual copies of the article “Poison Dart Frog” by National Geographic Kids
Summarization checklist (see below)
Assessment checklist (see below)
Comprehension questions (see below)

Procedures:

Say, “Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and then recommended it to a friend! Did you read the whole article or book? Did you say every detail or just the most important parts? Right! When we are telling someone about something that we have read, we only tell them about the most important parts of the story. This strategy is called summarizing, and it helps us to study, communicate, and learn every day. Summarization is a very important strategy that skilled readers use to help them comprehend what they have read. Summarizing a story indicates that you understand what you read!”
Say: “There are three rules that can help us remember how to summarize texts. Get out your daily journals and write down these rules. The first rule is to mark out any unimportant information in the text and highlight the important information that is essential in the text. The second rule is to find an umbrella term or terms for the events that happen in the text. This means we superordinate items and events. The final rule is to form a topic sentence from the umbrella terms and the highlighted terms. Now that you know these rules and have recorded them in your journal, you can use them to practice summarization.”
Say “Before we begin, I want to talk about some important words that we will see in the text that we are going to read. These words are: metamorphosis and toxic. The first word we are going to go over is metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages. If I wanted to use the word metamorphosis in a sentence, I could say, “The tadpole is experiencing metamorphosis”. Now, I want you to pull out a piece of paper and try using the word "metamorphosis" in a sentence. The second word is toxic. Toxic means poisonous. For example, if I say Dart Frogs are toxic, what does that mean? (Wait for students to answer). Now I want you to use "toxic" in a sentence.”

Say “When we want to summarize a passage, we read only a little bit at a time. When we finish reading that small part, we look back and figure out what the most important parts are. We cross out ideas that are not important to the main idea. We must be very selective in choosing the most important information. “Now that we know what summarization is and why it is important, I am going to show you how to do it. To do this we will use an article called “Red-Eyed Tree Frog”. *Book talk: This article gives us a ton of information about the red-eyed tree frog including it’s the benefits of its skin color and its transition from a tadpole into a frog! Let’s read to find out more about the red-eyed tree frog! Do you think the red color of the frogs’ eyes will alarm the predators? (See what the students have to say). We are now going to read an article to find out! Watch how I summarize the first paragraph in the article. (Hand each student a copy of the article). Remember that I only want the important parts! First, I am going to read the entire first paragraph.

“A female red-eyed tree frog has laid a batch of eggs on a leaf. She chose the spot carefully—the leaf hangs over a pond. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the tadpoles inside start swirling around vigorously. The activity breaks each egg open, releasing the little tadpoles. All the tadpoles wash down the leaf in a little stream of moisture from the hatching eggs, and—plop! plop! plop!—they land in the pond below.”

The first paragraph gives us some great information! I am going to use a highlighter to highlight the important parts. The first paragraph says that the tadpoles inside the eggs start swirling around vigorously when they are ready to hatch. I am going to highlight “When the eggs are ready to hatch, the tadpoles inside start swirling around vigorously.” because the entire article is about the tadpoles that turn into the red-eyed tree frogs. Next, we want to find an umbrella term for everything that happens in the paragraph. Who can think of one? *wait for class to answer. “The tadpoles hatching!” Good job! The paragraph is more specific than just the frogs laying eggs, but more importantly, it is focusing on the hatching of the little tadpoles! Remember, we then want to use our pencil and mark out any unnecessary facts!

5. Say “Now that you have a good idea of how to summarize, let’s summarize the next paragraph together.

“Feeding on tiny insects, the tadpoles live in the water they fell into until they metamorphose, or develop, into little brown froglets. At this point they leave the water and climb up nearby trees to live as tree frogs. By the time they're adults, the frogs have turned a striking green, with blue-and-yellow striped sides, orange or red feet, a flash of blue on their thighs, and big red eyes. The bright colors are a defense mechanism.”

6. Say: Let’s underline the most important parts of this paragraph. “Do you think that the fact that tadpoles feed on tiny insects is important?” (Listen to the answers the students give). “No, I don’t think it is either. (Allow students time to discuss with their partners what they believe the important parts are).

7. “Now that I have modeled for you and we have done it together, you are going to continue to work on summarizing on your own. I want you to read the article “Poison Dart Frog” in National Geographic Kids. Once you have finished, come to the front and get a Summary Checklist from me. This will help you write a summary of the article using the highlighted information. Do not worry if it looks short. The point of a summary is so that you get a short version of an article. Once you have finished, I want you to share your summary with a neighbor. If there are any differences between you and your neighbor’s summaries, I want you to discuss them.”

Summary Checklist:

Did I…..

____ write my topic sentence?

____ find supporting details to help answer the question?

____ remove unimportant information by marking it out?

____ remove repeated ideas?

____ create a 3-5 sentence summary?

Comprehension Quiz:

Name: _____________

1. What is the primary usage of the bright colored frogs? (It tells the potential predators that they are toxic and not to eat them)

2. Why do the frogs eat? (The frogs eat many kinds of small insects, including fruit flies, ants, termites, young crickets, and tiny beetles)

3. Where do poison dart frogs live? (They live in the rain forests of Central and South America)