“Stretching into Summarization”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading to Learn Lesson

By:  Kristin Peacock

 

Rationale:  The ultimate goal of reading is to develop comprehension skills.  This lesson is meant to introduce students to a helpful strategy known as summarization.  By learning how to summarize, students will be able to mentally delete redundant and trivial information and focus on the most important information.  In this lesson, students will use these summarization strategies to read, learn, and understand an article about Giraffes.

 

Materials:

• Class set of the article “Giraffes” by Kids National Geographic

• Poster containing summarization rules

• Marker for each student

• Paper for each student

• Smartboard/whiteboard

• Assessment chart for each student (filled out by teacher)

 

Procedures:

 

1.  Say: “Have you ever read a book that you really liked and wanted to tell a friend about it?  What did you do?  Did you read them the entire book?  (wait for student response) Or did you get them a brief account of the story, focusing on the important details?  Does anyone know what we call that strategy?  It is called summarization.  Summarization is a very helpful strategy to use to help comprehend and understand what exactly we are reading.  In order to be an expert reader, we must be able comprehend what we have read.  The best way to check our comprehension is by summarizing.”

 

2. Say:  “Before we begin reading today’s article, can anyone tell me what they already know about giraffes?  (call on students).  We know that they are a type of animal.  We also know that they are very tall.  I think I would like to learn a little more about this animal.” (teacher will write on smartboard as students come up with already known facts)

 

3.  Say:  “Now, I would like everyone to take out a marker and I will pass around a sheet of paper for each student.  When you get your paper, please turn in horizontal and divide it into three columns.  Once you do that, I would like you to look up at the Smartboard and you will see our “3 Rules of Summarization” chart.  Let’s read the first rule together, Delete the trivial or unimportant information.  I would like you to write this rule at the top of the first column on your piece of paper.  What do you think this means? (allow time for student response)  This means that we must decide which words and phrases are most important in a story or article and delete the rest.  In a book, this might be hard so you just have to make a “mental deletion.”  In an article, like we will be reading today, you can simply draw a line through the unimportant information.  Now, let’s read the second rule together, Superordinate items and events.  Go ahead and write this rule at the top of the second column on your paper.  This means to make an umbrella term; for example, animals is a superordinate term for cats, dogs, mice, and birds.  Finally, let’s all read the last rule together, Make a topic sentence.  This will be written in the top of the last column on your paper.  Does anyone have an idea of what it means to make a topic sentence?  (allow time for student response)  A topic sentence combines all of the important information in a short, condensed way so that you and are able to summarize and comprehend what you have just read.”

 

4.  Say:  “Now I am going to pass out a copy of an article about Giraffes.  We have already discussed some facts that we already know about this animal.  There may be some information in this article that you already know; however, I want to you read through this article anyways and see if you can learn even more.”

 

“Giraffes grow about 4 feet (1.2 meters) in their first year of life. A newborn giraffe is about 6 feet (1.9 meters) tall at birth and weighs about 150 pounds (68 kilograms). ​

​ Many young giraffes, called calves, die from lion attacks during their first year of life. Once a giraffe reaches adulthood its height is often enough to protect it from lions. Adult giraffes, however, must still be careful of lions when they are bending down to drink water or rest. Usually giraffes will drink or rest in shifts so that at least one giraffe is always on the lookout for approaching predators.​

​The giraffes' height and excellent vision give them a wide view of the grasslands where they live, making it easy to spot predators from a distance. Some scientists believe that other animals—such as zebras, antelope, and wildebeests—often congregate near giraffes to take advantage of their ability to see danger from a distance. The giraffe could be considered the early warning system of the African grasslands.”

 

5.  Say:  “Before we begin to summarize, it is important that we understand the vocabulary used throughout this article.  Does anyone know what the word predator means?  (wait for student response) Right, a predator is an animal that eats other animals.  A good example sentence would be The rhinoceros uses its horn to fight off predators. What about the word congregate?  Congregate means to gather into a crowd. For an example, to use this word in daily conversation I might say I bet the hungry guests will congregate near the kitchen.  It is important that we recognize and understand all of the vocabulary in a story or article before we can start to summarize.”

 

6. Say:  “Now that we have examined some new vocabulary we are ready to summarize.  Let’s look at the first paragraph together.  I’ll start with the first sentence: Giraffes grow about 4 feet (1.2 meters) in their first year of life.  Do you think it is important that we know about how tall giraffes grow?  If we were telling someone who didn’t know anything about giraffes, I think it would be very important that they know that during the first year of life, a giraffe grows four feet!  I don’t think that we necessary would have to tell them that they grow 1.2 meters in their first year.  To me, this information seems a little redundant.  Since the goal of summarizing is to eliminate redundant and unimportant information, I wouldn’t include this particular information in my summary.  Now let’s move on to the second sentence:  A newborn giraffe is about 6 feet (1.9 meters) tall at birth and weighs about 150 pounds (68 kilograms). ​  Use your summarization rules to take a closer look at this sentence.  First, let’s delete the trivial or unimportant information.  Just like in the last sentence, it is kind of redundant to tell us the giraffe’s height and weights in multiple units.  So, let’s go ahead and cross out “1.9 meters” and “68 kilograms.”  Now let’s look at the second rule which says that we should find the important information.  I think that it is important to know that a newborn giraffe is already 6 feet tall.  That is taller than many of our parents!  WOW!  It is also to know that it weights 150 pounds.  That means when the giraffe is born it weighs as much as an average adult human.  Now, what is our third rule?  We need to make a topic sentence for this paragraph.  Based on the information we underlined and deleted in the first two sentences, does anyone have any ideas for a topic sentence for this paragraph? (allow several students to give their ideas, teacher will give feedback based on answers)  I think my topic sentence might be something like, “Six feet tall and 150 pounds at birth, Giraffes grow to be very tall animals.” 

 

7.  Say: “Now that we have finished summarizing the first paragraph together, I am going to let you work on summarizing the second two paragraphs.  Remember to use your summarization rules to delete unimportant information, highlight important information, and form a topic sentence.  You will need to use your piece of paper with the rules listed in columns to organize your summary.  On the back of your paper, please write a topic sentence for each paragraph.  When you are done you may turn your papers in at the front of the classroom.”

 

Assessment:

 

1. I will review each student’s column chart and topic sentences to determine if they have a good grasp on comprehension and summary.  I will use the assessment checklist (attached) to record each child’s score.  Although answers may vary, the checklist will help me to be sure to check for specific elements of accurately summarizing articles or short stories.  I have also added some questions below that can be used to check for comprehension.

 

Comprehension Questions:

1.  How much does the average giraffe grow in its first year of life?

2. How does the giraffe use its height to help protect himself and other giraffes from predators?

3. What is a main cause of death to young giraffes, according to the article?

 

 

 

Student Name _______________________________

 

1.  Did the student fill out the chart on his/her paper?

2. Did the student come up with topic sentences for the remaining paragraphs?

3. Did the student successfully delete unimportant/redundant information?

4.  Did the student successfully identify important words/phrases?

5.  Did the student use the important information to come up with a topic sentence?

Assessment Checklist:

 

 

 

Resources:

 

1. Murray, B.A. (2012).  Making Sight Words:  Teaching Word Recognition from Phoneme Awareness to Fluency.  Ronkonkoma NY: Linus. P 294.

 

2. National Geographic, “Giraffe”

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/giraffe/#giraffe-pair-eating.jpg

 

3. Lions, Tigers, and Summarizations… Oh My! By: Maddie Ridpath

http://mrr0022.wix.com/ridpathsrockstars#!readingtolearn/c10nz