Swimming with Summarization
By: Katie Sullivan
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Rationale: The main goal of learning to read is to comprehend the message of the passage. Understanding the goal, context, and overall meaning of a text is the end goal of reading. When a student is reading for comprehension, he or she should not be focusing on decoding at this point. The student should be reading fluently and skills such as rereading to understand the text. To summarize, readers must be able to follow the Kintsch and Van Dijk’s Summarization Rules:
1. Delete trivia and redundancies.
2. Superordinate items and events.
3. Find or compose a statement that covers everything the writer is saying about the topic.
Materials:
· Paper
· Pencils
· Markers
· Article on "Green Invaders"
· Article on “Giant Panda”
· Large Chart paper with a web drawn on it
· Small pieces of poster board
Procedures:
1. For the first part of the lesson, we will discuss what summarization means. “What does the word summarize mean? (allow students to answer) To summarize, you figure out the most important information from the article you’re reading and put them together to give an overview of the passage. A summary is made up of the most important parts of the story. We are going to learn to summarize!”
2. “To be able to summarize, you have to be able to read the passage to yourself, and as you read, ask important questions. I am going to show you how to do this by reading a short passage and asking questions.” When I finish modeling, I will give each student a passage about “Bottlenose Dolphins.” “I want you to read this passage about dolphins to yourself and ask questions as you read.”
Booktalk: This is a passage about Bottlenose Dolphins. Dolphins are very cute animals, and they are very smart also. Bottlenose dophins like to send messages to each other. Let’s read and see how they are able to communicate.
3. “Okay, since you’re all done reading, let’s discuss the article as a class. Did you see any words that you did not know? I saw the word echolocation. Does anyone know what that word means? It means that the dolphins make clicking noises, and when the noises bounce off something in the water, the dolphins learn the size, shape, speed, distance, and location of the object. Let’s look at this sentence: The dolphins use echolocation to know where big objects are in the water. If we know this is true, then we would not say, “The silly dolphin’s echolocation made him bump into a big patch of coral.” This would be untrue because the echolocation allows them to avoid collisions.”
4. “Now, lets make a visual representation of the story’s main points. Let’s put the main idea in the middle. What would you think the main idea of the story is? I like that! So, I’ll write that in the middle of our web. Dolphins are very smart animals. Okay, let’s branch out from our main idea and talk about what makes them so smart. First, they communicate with each other through squeaking, squawking, jumping out of they air, and slapping their tails on the water’s surface. Secondly, they are able to use echolocation with the whistle that they are born with to locate objects in the water. Thirdly, they have very good hearing. Sounds travel from their lower jaw to their inner ear. Give me some of your ideas.” I will add them to the web. “Now we can use this web to help us create a summary.”
5. “What is another animal that swims in the ocean? They have hard shells. They weigh A LOT! Can you think of anything? I am going to hand out a new article. This one is about Green Sea Turtles. I want you to read the article, write down five questions that you asked yourself, and create a web with the main ideas and supporting points. I will give you some poster paper and markers for to use to create a nice visual representation of the story.”
Assessment:
I will assess their understanding of summarization by allowing them to use the web they created in procedure number 5 to create a summary of the article while looking at their questions and web.
Name:
Did the student clearly understand the passage? YES/NO
Did the student find the topic or main idea? YES/NO
Did the student recall important facts? YES/NO
Did the student eliminate information that was unnecessary or repeated? YES/NO
Gaining Words of Wisdom by Raven Hunter
https://bpc0009.wixsite.com/readingdesigns/copy-of-growing-independence-and-fl
Bottlenose Dolphin Article
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bottlenose-dolphin/#world-oceans-day-dolphins.jpg
Green Sea Turtle Article
​
Return to Application Page