Reading to Learn

Bolting into Summarization

Reading to Learn

Mary Kate Smith

Rationale: Summarization is one of the most powerful strategies for comprehending text. It is very important for students to do this while reading. During this lesson, students will learn to summarize. Summarization can reveal whether a student has fully grasped the importance of the reading they were given. Students will learn how to delete trivial and redundant information in an article about lightning. They also will learn how to use important information to make a summary.

Materials:

Pencil and paper for each student
Individual copies of an article written for kids on lightning from timeforkids.com
Summarization checklist and comprehension quiz

Procedures:

Begin by explaining to children the meaning and importance of summarization: “Summarization means to figure out the main idea of a text. When we read a text, we could spend all day trying to remember all the words and all the details. Good readers don’t try to remember everything. They use summarization strategies to remember only the important points and main idea of the text. This allows them to reduce a text that may have hundreds or thousands of words to just the important details that help them understand the story.”
Say: “Let’s go over some rules about summarization. First, we need to delete any unimportant information. Next, we need to read through and delete any repeated information. Then, select or come up with a topic sentence to begin our summary.”
Say: “Later, I am going to show you how I’d follow these steps of summarization with a paragraph on lightning, which is the article you are going to be reading today. Do you know what lightning is? When does lightning occur? How is lightning formed? These are some of the questions you will be learning to answer today.”
Say: “Let’s look at an important vocabulary word you’ll be reading from the article: collision. A collision is when two or more things hit each other. When two things collide, it doesn’t mean they blend or conform to each other, it means they bump or hit each other. What are two things that could collide with each other? Finish the sentence: The collision completely damaged the… Possible completion:…car.

Say: “Here is a paragraph from the article.”

The skies are dark and the clouds are thick. A bright bolt of light suddenly flashes through the sky. A loud clap of thunder follows. Thunderstorms happen often on Earth. But much about lightning still remains a mystery, even to the scientists who study it.

"This paragraph is about a description of when lightning occurs, but what information is unnecessary? I can delete unimportant thoughts that don’t apply to the description of lightening, so I am left with, The skies are dark and the clouds are thick. A bright bolt of light suddenly flashes through the sky. A loud clap of thunder follows. Examining the remaining text, I can make a topic sentence: Lightning occurs when the skies are dark and the clouds are thick, and usually a loud clap of thunder follows.”

Say: “Now I want you to use the summarizing rules we discussed on a paragraph.”

Just try not to blink! You might miss the whole event. An average bolt of lightning travels more than 220,000 miles per hour and reaches temperatures greater than 53,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

"What information is unnecessary? Yes the beginning exclamation can be deleted. What are we left with? You might miss the whole event. An average bolt of lightning travels more than 220,000 miles per hour and reaches temperatures greater than 53,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Let’s combine these two sentences. Lightning is very fast and travels more than 220,000 miles per hour and can reach a temperature of 53,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Now I’d like you to finish reading the article and use your summarizing rules to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have a good summary of the article, which will help you remember important facts about lightening. Don’t summarize examples or trivia; they are written only to help you understand the main ideas. You are writing a short version of the article in your own words, including only the important ideas to remember. And to make sure you remember, we will have a quiz after everyone finishes writing.”

Assessment: Collect each student’s summary of the article, and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:

______ Collected important information

______ Ignored trivia and examples in summary

______ Significantly reduced the text from the original

______ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

______ Sentences organized coherently into essay form

Quiz: