Rationale: 

In order for students to read confidently and fluently, they must learn to understand what they are reading. Comprehensive reading is how the student will be able to understand what the text is saying. Students need to understand the right way to read, in order to learn. Summarization is an extremely important part of reading to learn. Summarizing teaches students to pick the most important information and get rid of additional details. This lesson will teach reading comprehension by showing students how to summarize and determine important events in a text. Comprehension will be tested by students answering questions regarding the articles that they have read. 

 

Materials:

• Paper/pencil, highlighters

• Bookmark with summarization rules

• Delete or mark out information that isn’t important

• Highlight the import information

• Ignore the additional details

• Form a topic sentence from the reading

• Summarization checklist

• Articles: Pi Day, and 

 

Procedures:

1. Say, “Today we are going to summarize! Summarizing means picking out the most important details of a reading in order to learn helpful information that will help you understand that reading. We will be practicing this skill by reading two articles! We will pick out the main idea and what information supports that idea by eliminating details we don’t need.”

 

2. Say, “I made these special bookmarks with the rules of summarization on them. All of you can have one! (pass out bookmarks) While you are reading you can look at these rules and use them to help you! I will also write the same rules on the white board.”

 

3. Say, “When you read the first article I want you to highlight everything that is important, including the main idea. After that, mark out all of the extra details.”

 

4. Say, “Don't forget that the summary needs to be shorter that the actual article!  Now I am going to give everyone an article about Pi Day! (pass out copies and give book talk) Who here loves pie? Who here loves math?  Well we are going to learn all about this special math holiday that has to do with Pi. Don’t forget we are swinging into summarization, so make sure you are keeping track of your bookmark rules to summarize the article in the end.”

 

5. After students have finished reading, say, “Now let's go through and find out which parts are the most important! (call on different students and see what their ideas are) Now let’s create our topic sentence by answering the questions: what is it about? What is the main point? (students respond) Okay, now we have answered all of the questions you should be able to start writing your summaries! I will be walking around to help and answer any questions!”

 

6. Say, “Since everybody had such an easy time summarizing the last article, we are going to move on to another one! This one is called, “Let’s go Green!” and it is about St. Patrick’s day. Who knows why we celebrate St. Patrick’s day? When we read this article we will find out, including many other fun facts about the holiday.  Let’s read and then summarize this article to find out all about St. Patrick! When you read, don’t forget to highlight the important facts. Once you finish, write your topic sentence.”

 

7. Walk around and check on work that is being completed. Say, “If everyone continues to pick out the important details of the article, you should be doing a wonderful job and on your way to a perfect summarization!”

 

8.  Now that we have summarized, let’s pick out a word we may have struggled with. The word is “commemorate”. This word means to serve as a memorial or reminder of. Who can give me a sentence using this word? (wait for responses) This word must be important to our story! Let’s try to understand the passage when we take out the word (read the paragraph). See, it doesn’t make much sense.

 

9. Say, “When everyone has finished, please bring me both of your summaries that you have completed!”

 

Assessment:

In the student’s summary did they…

• Delete unimportant information? YES/NO

• Create a topic sentence? YES/NO

• Create 3-5 good, clear sentences? YES/NO

• Choose key points? YES/NO

• Choose the correct main idea? YES/NO

 

After the assessment, I will ask each student questions as a reading comprehension check for the end of the lesson.

Comprehension Questions for “Bianca Andreescu Wins US Open.”

1. Who is the article about?

2. Who do we honor on St. Patrick’s day?

3. What is the main color we wear on St. Patrick’s Day?

4. What plan is associated with this holiday?

5. What kind of class would you use Pi (3.14) in?