Rationale: The goal of reading is achieving reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand a text that was just read. If a student is reading for comprehension, they are no longer spending time decoding words, but now are focused on understanding the message of the text. A great way to test a student’s comprehension is to have them summarize a book that they have already read. In this lesson, students will practice summarization as a strategy of reading comprehension. The students will summarize text by only using important information from the text. Students will use the following summarization rules: mark out information that is not important or repeated, find and highlight important information, and describing the passage in a few sentences. The teacher will model how to detect important information that is needed to write a summary.
Materials:
· Paper and pencil for each student
· Highlighters for each student
· Individual copies of the article “Blue Whale” by National Geographic Kids
· Individual copies of the article “Beluga Whale” by National Geographic Kids
· Summarization checklist for each student (see below)
· Assessment checklist (see below)
· Comprehension quiz (see below)
Procedures:
1. Say “Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and recommended it to a friend. Do you read them the whole book or do you just tell them the important parts of the book? Right! You only tell them the important parts of the story. When you only tell them the important parts of the story, this is called summarizing. Summarization is a very important strategy in which good readers use to comprehend what they have read. If you are able to summarize a book, then it tells me that you understand what you have read!”
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Say: “Three rules that can help us remember how to summarize are: (Handout individual pieces of paper for students to copy down the three rules)
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Cross out any unimportant or repeated information that isn’t essential to the message of the text.
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Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text.
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Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted.
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Now that we have those rules written down, you can refer back to them when we practice summarizing our article in the next few minutes.”
3. 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: mammal and endangered. The first word we are going to go over is mammal, to be a mammal means to be in a class which consists of a warm-blooded vertebrate typically with fur, so what does mammal mean? (Wait for the student’s answers). If I wanted to use the word mammal in a sentence, I could say, “The Blue Whale is a type of mammal”. Now, I want you to pull out a piece of paper and try using the word "mammal" in a sentence. The second word is endangered. Endangered means a species of animal is at risk of dying out, or becoming fewer in number, and eventually disappearing. For example, if I say Blue Whales are endangered, what does that mean? (Wait for students to answer). Now I want you to use "endangered" in a sentence.”
4. 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 “The Blue Whale”. *Book talk: This article gives us a ton of information about the Blue Whale including its weight, food source, and why the Blue Whale is so useful! Let’s read to find out more about the Blue Whale! Do you think a blue whale could survive without its blubber and oil? (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.
“The blue whale is the largest mammal in the world. A blue whale calf weighs two tons (1,814 kilograms) at birth and gains an extra 200 pounds (91 kilograms) each day of its first year. Blue whales are able to breathe air, but they are very comfortable in the ocean waters where buoyancy helps to support their incredible bulk. These mammals are found in all the world's oceans and often swim in small groups or alone.”
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 Blue Whale is the largest mammal in the world. I am going to highlight “The blue whale is the largest mammal in the world” because the entire article is about the Blue Whale. 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 Blue Whale’s weight!” Good job! The paragraph is more specific than just the Blue Whale, but more importantly, it is focusing on its weight! 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.
“These giant creatures feed on tiny shrimplike animals called krill. Only a few thousand blue whales are believed to swim the world's oceans. They were hunted for many years for their blubber and oil, and they were almost hunted to extinction. They were protected under the 1966 International Whaling Convention and are now considered to be an endangered species.”
6. Say: Let’s underline the most important parts of this paragraph. “Do you think that only a few thousand blue whales are believed to swim the world’s oceans is important?” (Listen to the answers the students give). “No, I don’t think it is either because that was already stated in the first paragraph.” (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 “Beluga Whale” 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?
Assessment Materials:
Comprehension Quiz:
Name: _____________
1. What was the primary food for the Beluga Whale? (The Beluga Whale feeds on fish, crustaceans, and worms)
2. Why is the Beluga Whale unique? (They have a very flexible neck so it can nod and turn its head in every direction)
3. How does the Beluga Whale communicate? (They use a diversified language of clicks, whistles, and clangs, along with a variety of other sounds)
4. What makes the Beluga Whale identifiable? (They have a distinct color and prominent foreheads)
Assessment Checklist:
Did the student…..
_____Collected important information
_____ Significantly reduced the text from the original
_____ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
_____ Sentences organized coherently into essay form
References:
Beluga Whales article; National Geographic for Kids: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/beluga-whale/#beluga-whale-underewater-closeup-teeth.jpg
Blue Whale article; National Geographic for Kids:
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/blue-whale/#blue-whale-fluke.jpg
Erin Korn; Reading with Ms. Korn; Summarization Superstars: