Reading to Learn Design

Roaring Through Summarization!

Rationale: The goal of reading is reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is important because it allows the reader to get the message of the text. Summarization is important because it helps students understand what they have read. By teaching students to delete trivial information and finding or creating a topic sentence that explains the main idea of the text, we can help students gain better reading comprehension. In this lesson students will practice summarizing information.

Materials: Pencils (for each student), paper (for each student), highlighters (for each student), individual copies of Lion article (URL below), summarization checklist, and comprehension quiz

Procedures:

1. Teacher says: Can anyone tell me what it means to summarize? [Wait for student response.] When we summarize we focus only on the important information. By summarizing, we reduce a long text to only a sentence or two that is easy to remember.

2. [Write rules on board.] Teacher says: When we summarize we have three rules. First, we are going to cross out any unimportant or repeated information that isn’t crucial to the message of the text. Second, we are going to highlight the important information that is crucial to the message of the text. Finally we are going to form a topic sentence from the important information we highlighted. The topic sentence explains the message of the text in a sentence or two.

3. Teacher says: Understanding key vocabulary is needed to comprehend the text. We are going to take a look at a few words found in the text to make sure we understand their meaning. Words: intruder, pride, territory, evicted [For each explain the word in simple language, model how to use the word: What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean?, provide sample questions using the word, and scaffold by making a sentence using the from for students to complete.]

Example: Let’s look at what the word intruder means. An intruder is someone who comes in without an invitation or welcome. An intruder would be someone who came to your birthday party that you didn’t invite. An intruder would not be your best friend you invited to your party and asked to spend the night. Which one of these is an intruder: a criminal robbing a bank or a family going to a grocery store? Finish the sentence: The intruder was caught for…

4. Teacher says: Today we are going to read an article about Lions to practice summarizing and creating topic sentences. Does anyone know why a lion’s pride is important? What is the role of the lion and lionesses? Do lions let outsiders join their pride? These are a few of the topics that will be addressed in the article we are going to read!

5. [Pass out Lion article, pencils, and highlighters.] Teacher says: Does anyone remember our three summarization rules? [Wait for students to respond.] That’s right! First, we cross out any unimportant or repeated information that isn’t crucial to the message of the text. Second, we highlight the important information that is crucial to the message of the text. Finally we form a topic sentence from the important information we highlighted. We are going to summarize the first paragraph together to practice, then you will get to try on your own. Let’s all look at the first paragraph:

For all of their roaring, growling, and ferociousness, lions are family animals and truly social in their own communities. They usually live in groups of 15 or more animals called prides. Prides can be as small as 3 or as big as 40 animals. In a pride, lions hunt prey, raise cubs, and defend their territory together. In prides the females do most of the hunting and cub rearing. Usually all the lionesses in the pride are related—mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and sisters. Many of the females in the pride give birth at about the same time. A cub may nurse from other females as well as its mother. Each pride generally will have no more than two adult males.

[Explain why you are deleting or highlighting information as you go.] We can cross out the first, third, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth sentences because that information is not critical to know. The second, fourth, and fifth sentences share important information, so let’s highlight those. A good topic sentence is given to us in this paragraph, “In a pride, lions hunt prey, raise cubs, and defend their territory together.” A topic sentence is not always given in. If you have to generate your own topic sentence look at the information you highlighted to compile your own topic sentence.

6. [Pass out blank piece of paper and write comprehension questions on board.] Teacher says: Now that we have practiced summarizing the first paragraph you are going to summarize the rest of the article on your own. While reading don’t forget to use your summarization rules, marking out any unimportant information, highlighting any important information, and creating a topic sentence! After you are done reading, create a topic sentence from the information you highlighted. Summarize and write a topic sentence for each paragraph to make it easier to remember the important points. Write your summary and topic sentence on your blank piece of paper. Also on your piece of paper, answer the questions [comprehension quiz] that are on the board. Be sure to turn in your work when you are finished.

Assessment:

Comprehension Quiz:

1.How is hunting accomplished in the pride?

2.Why are prides important?

3.Why do lions roar?

4. How to do males and females work together in the pride?

Summarization Checklist Rubric:

Student Name:

Did the student mark out unimportant information?

___/ 2

Did the student highlight important words and information?

___/ 2