Fabulous Findings to Summarization 

Beginning Reading

Anna Reid Dove

 

 

Rational: To be a great reader, comprehension is required.  Comprehension is crucial for the understanding of what you are reading.  Summarization is a way that helps readers comprehend the text they are reading.  Summarization is defined as the process the reader takes to understand the main idea and details of the text to create a summary of the material.  This lesson is designed to teach students on how to summarize texts they read.  I will teach the students how to highlight important details in the text so they can refer back to them to comprehend the texts. I will model the steps in the summarization process which includes removing unimportant and redundant information the students gained from the text.  In this lesson students will practice their summarization skills and enhance their reading comprehension skills by reading a passage while the teacher assesses their skills by using a summarization checklist.  

 

Materials: Student copies of the Kids Discover article, “What Causes Fabulous Freckles,” pencils and paper for every student, summarization checklist, comprehension, quiz, and a white board with dry erase markers.  

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “Students, today we are going to learn how to summarize texts.”  “Have you ever read a book and went to tell your friends about it?”  “When you shared this information with you friends you left out a lot of information but only shared the important ideas right?”  “That’s right!” “You summarized when you did this, and that is what we are going to work on today!”  Summarization is super important, because in all cases you cannot remember everything you read, so we summarize to remember the important ideas!”

2. Say: “One way we can summarize is a strategy called about point.”  “When using this strategy, we ask ourselves two different questions after we read the text.”  “We ask ourselves one easy question being, “what is the text about?” “Then we ask ourselves a harder question being, “What is the main point the writer is trying to make about the point?” “I am going to write these two questions on the board so you can refer back to them during our activities!”  “The answer to both of these questions will help us form a topic sentence.”

3. Say: “Later on in this lesson I will teach you all how to practice the about point strategy using the article, “What Causes Fabulous Freckles.”   “During this lesson, you will each read this article to practice your summarization skills, by asked yourselves the two questions on the board we discussed.” “Have you ever wondered how you got the freckles on your face?”  “Well today we are going to read this article to find out!”

4. Say: “To understand the article you will have to understand the word, Melanin.”  “According to the article, melanin “absorbs and reflects the sun’s ultraviolet light, helping to protect skin from sun damage.”  “You would say that you have melanin in your skin, and lighter skin people have less melanin, therefore they receive more freckles from the sun.”  “Let’s try and finish the sentence, ___ protects your skin from sun damage.” 

5. Say: “Now that we understand the word Melian, we can read the article to understand how freckles are formed.”  “I can understand that the first paragraph in this article talks about the basic understanding of freckles and how they differentiate between people.”  “The author gives us this basic information to give us insight for the rest of the article.”  “A topic sentence for this paragraph could be, “Freckles are caused by melanin in your skin, which is different for every individual.”

6. Say: “Now it’s your turn to try about – point.” “Let’s read the next paragraph in this article!” “What is this paragraph about?” “Right, how freckles are genetic in families, and how they differentiate between people.”  “To make a topic sentence for this paragraph we would combine these two points.” “This topic sentence would be, “Freckles are genetic but can differentiate between people.”

7. Say: “Now I was you all to finish the article and write a topic sentence for each paragraph using about point.” “This method helps us have a summary of the whole article and will help us remember the important details in the article.” “Remember when you are completing this activity to answer both questions we talked about at the beginning of the lecture.”  “Remember when completing this activity to only pick out the most important parts during each paragraph, and to summarize these sentences in your own words.” “Turn these into me when you are done.”

 I will go back and review all of the student’s topic sentences that they turned into me to make sure they understand the idea of summarization.  I will use the assessment checklist to grade the students along with the comprehension quiz.  

 

Checklist:

Students name:

1. Wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph. Y/N

2. Deleted unimportant or repetitive information. Y/N

3. Reduced the texts from original to summary. Y/N

4. The student acknowledged important points in the article. Y/N

5. Successfully combined important points to form a topic sentence. Y/N

 

Comprehension quiz:

1. How does Melanin protect the skin from sun damage? – Melanin absorbs and reflects the sun’s ultraviolet rays

2. Why do fairer skinned people get freckles easier? – they have less melanin in their skin

3. What are some ways freckles can be removed from your skin? Freezing the skin, laser zapping, chemical peels, and more

4. Should you see the doctor is you have unusual looking spots on your skin?  - yes

5. What’s another name for liver spots? – age spots 

References:

“What Causes Fabulous Freckles” by Kids Discover  https://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/what-causes-fabulous-freckles/

“Coloring the Way to Summarization” By Elizabeth Hamn https://keh0069.wixsite.com/mysite-2/reading-to-learn

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