Ms. Liz Messina

Rational: Summarization is an important part of comprehending text. In order to become better skillful readers, students must be able to find key points and main ideas throughout a story. This lesson will help students learn how to find the key points and separate the main ideas in a story in order to summarize a text after observing how the teacher models how to delete trivial information and pick out the important points.

 

Materials:

1. pencil

2. paper

3. highlighter

4. “Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?” from Discovery Kids (passage on Smartboard and printed classroom copies)

5. “The Science of Lightning” article from Time for Kids (printed classroom copies)

 

Procedures:

1. Introduction: "Today we are going to learn how to summarize what we read in books. Does anyone have any idea what it means to summarize? That's right! Summarizing is when we take the main ideas from a story and form a short overview of what happened. Summarizing helps us to understand what we have read. This is also called comprehension."

 

2. "Now we are going to look at a new article we have not read before.  The article is titled “Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?” This article will help us understand how the weather changes from a calm day to a big storm, and why the weather can change so easily.

 

3. Prior to reading the story, explain and model the steps to summarization. Using a Smartboard, read the first paragraph of “Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?” We will mark out unimportant and repeated details, highlight important information, and form a main idea or topic sentence.  "Now we are going to learn the steps to summarizing. After reading a passage, we must first delete any information that is not important or that is repeated. Secondly, we have to identify important information and details that will help us to form a main idea or topic sentence. A topic sentence is the same thing as the main idea. Let's look at the first paragraph of “Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?” on the Smartboard. ["Sometimes, the weather changes suddenly just before a storm lets loose. You may suddenly feel a weird calm and quiet before a storm hits, even though it may still be warm and sunny. This happens because of changes in the atmosphere as a storm builds up. Storm clouds pull in warm, moist air from all around as the storm system develops. The air travels up through the clouds and then shoots right out over the top of the cloud, and then back down again. On the way down, the air becomes warmer and drier."] Do you see any information that is not important? "Weather changes before a storm lets loose” is not really that important, so let's mark it out (mark these out). What about details that seem important? "Storm clouds pull in warm, moist air" is important, so let's highlight it (highlight or circle these details). Now let's try to form a summarizing main idea about what we have just read. ‘Sometime you feel a calm before a storm because of changes in the atmosphere, like storm clouds pulling in warm, moist air.’ This is the main idea of the first paragraph."

 

3. Say: “I want each of you to pay close attention as you read the rest of the article silently to yourselves. As you read the story, remember to cross out any information that can be considered unnecessary with your pencil. Use your highlighter in order to show the main ideas of the text. This will help you be able to quickly write out a summary. After you have finished reading the article, I want you to summarize what you read in the text in 5 sentences or less. Remember to only write about the key points or main ideas throughout the story. Don’t write down any of the minor details that you crossed out but stick to what the article is mainly talking about. Please write your summaries in complete sentences. Remember to write your summaries in your own words and do not copy the text word for word (The teacher will pass out the class copies of “Why is the Weather Calm Before the Storm?” The teacher will give students 10-15 minutes to read and summarize the article).

 

4. Say: “Now that you all have been given some time to read the story and summarize the main ideas of the article, I will call on a few of you to tell me what you wrote down. I will write the main ideas and key points on the whiteboard as you read them aloud (The teacher will call upon several students to give at least 10 main ideas about what was read). Sometime there is a calm feeling before a storm because of atmosphere changes. Clouds pull in warm moist air when a storm develops. The air shoots out of the clouds and gets warmer and drier. The warm air spreads and makes the area calm. Storms are hard to predict. Great job! These are all great summary points!”

 

5. Say: “Now that you have had practice summarizing a text together, it’s your turn to practice on your own. I am going to pass out a different article called, “The Science Of Lightning” from Time For Kids. This article gives us a better understanding of how lightning is created, and why it strikes so brightly. You will also get to see how scientists capture photographs to collect this information about lightning. I would like for you to write at least 5 main ideas that you read in this article. What are some things that we should remember about summarizing a piece of text? (The teacher will call upon students to answer the question). Awesome answers! Remember that you should only write the important details and main ideas in a story when summarizing. You should also make sure that you include any key words you find in the text. After you have finished summarizing the article, I will collect your papers (The teacher will take up the student’s papers with at least 5 summary points or more and read them in order to assess that students understand how to summarize a piece of text. The teacher will use a checklist to make sure that students have understood how to highlight the main ideas and delete the minor ideas of a text). Great work today!

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Summarizing Checklist:

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References:

Jones, Noelle “Summarizing is as Easy as Pie!” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/jonesnrl.htm

 

“Why is Weather Calm Before a Storm?”

http://discoverykids.com/articles/why-is-the-weather-calm-before-a-storm/

 

“The Science Of Lightning”

http://www.timeforkids.com/news/science-lightning/429786