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Reading to Learn

You Have Cat to be Kitten Me…Summary!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rationale: In this lesson, children will learn how to read expository texts in order to gather information. Strengthening reading comprehension while reading text for information is the next step after learning to read text fluently. In other words, children must learn to read to learn. Having students summarize expository text allows the teacher to assess student understanding of the text. It is important for students to learn how to summarize without trivial information leaving behind only important information of the text. This lesson is designed for students to practice comprehension skills and summarization without trivial details. 

 

 

 

Materials:

  • Pencils

  • Paper

  • Highlighter

  • White board

  • Dry erase markers

  • Rubric for grading summaries

  • “Lion” National Geographic Kids article

 

 

 

 

Procedures: 

 

 

1. Say: “Today, we will work on summarization and practice how to summarize a text on lions from National Geographic Kids. Summarizing is a wonderful tool to use after reading a text. When summarizing, you only want to state the most importation information of the text and leave behind any information that is not important (trivial) or repeated information. I have picked out a fun article that we will practice summarizing with. We will try to focus on the main idea and facts that support that idea. We will leave out unimportant information.”

 

2. Say: “Now, I am going to pass out a stack of papers and I would like for everyone to take one sheet. Watch me as I show the class how to fold the paper into a trifold. First, take the paper and fold it over into 1/3 of the page, just like this. [Do demonstration] Then, with the remaining part of the paper, fold it behind the two parts. Your paper should be split into three sections now: a title page, two middle pages, and a back page. [Show your own paper split up]. Okay, now it is your turn! I will be walking around if you need help.” 

 

3. Say: Now that everyone has folded his or her paper, let’s go over why we are folding our paper like this in the first place. We’ll be using it as a study card for the steps of making a summary. You can use this whenever you need help summarizing articles. The first step in summarization is picking out the most important details and underlining or highlighting them. The second step is finding the repeated details that are unimportant and crossing them out. Finally, the third step is organizing the information you found in step one. The main idea should be supported by the details. Now, write these steps on a page in your study card. [Ask students to recall the steps to you as you have them write the steps in their cards.] The last page of your study will be for information that you need to remember about summarizing. For instance, summaries should always be shorter in length than the information you are summarizing.

 

4. Say: “Now, I am going to pass out the article. This article is about lions. We will summarize the first paragraph together, as a class. Have you ever wondered about lion families? I am going to read through the first paragraph of our lion article and then we will summarize it! [Read first paragraph aloud] Now that we’ve finished reading, let’s practice summarizing. I am going to highlight things that are important and cross out things that aren’t.”

 

5. [demonstration on white board] Say: “We can cross out the first sentence, “For all of their roaring, growling, and ferociousness, lions are family animals and truly social in their own communities” since it isn’t very important. We can highlight “groups of 15 or more” and “prides” in the second sentence since this gives us an important piece of information we would like to know about lions. We can also highlight “hunt prey”, “raise cubs” and “defend territory” in the fourth sentence. This gives us important details about what a lion pride does. We can completely cross out the sixth sentence because this is not something we need to know. Let’s highlight the last sentence, “Each pride generally will have no more than two adult males.” This is an important and interesting piece of information that many people do not know.”

 

6. [Ask students about what they think the main idea is] “That is correct!! The article talks all about lion families! Usually the main idea is relevant to the title of the article or is mentioned a lot throughout the article. [Ask students what they think the main point is] Great job!! The message is that lion families are called prides and prides serve many important purposes, such as to hunt prey, raise cubs and defend territory together.”

 

7. Say: “On the first page of your study card, summarize this main idea. The main idea is that lions live in groups called prides. A supporting detail would be that within prides, lions hunt, prey, raise cubs and defend territory.”

 

8. Say: “Now, let’s continue to pick out the important pieces of information from the remainder of this lion article. I want you to go through and read each paragraph yourself. Summarize it the best you can, highlighting the important parts and crossing out anything you think isn’t important to the main idea.”

 

9. [Walk around the classroom] Say: “Everyone’s study cards are looking excellent!!! Once you’ve read the entire article and have written down the main ideas along with supporting details, I want you to write a very brief summary of the article. At the bottom of the article, I would like for you to write any vocabulary words that are new and unfamiliar to you that you learned from the article. Then, write a sentence for each new word you learned. For example, let’s take a look at the word, territory. Territory means a certain area of land that is ruled under the control of someone (a leader). So if I were trying to write a sentence with that word I would say, “We live in the Auburn territory, governed by Robert Bentley.”

 

Some possible vocabulary words:

-evicted

-gene

-intruder

 

 

Assessment: To conclude the lesson, Students will be assessed on how well they completed his or her summaries. I will use this scoring rubric to grade the summaries for correct, adequate information:

 

In his or her summary, did the student…

-Remove trivial information? YES/NO

-Write a topic sentence? YES/NO

-Write 3-5 good, concise sentences? YES/NO

-Select key information from the article? YES/NO

-Choose the correct main topic for this article? YES/NO

-List any new vocabulary words/definitions at the end? YES/NO

 

 

I will also ask the students a series of comprehension questions to see if they read and understood the article:

-What is a group of 15 or more lions called? (a pride)

-What do lions do within prides? (hunt prey, raise cubs, & defend territory)

-Which lions do most of the hunting? (females)

-How often do the male lions typically stay within a pride? (2 to 4 years)

-What is it not unusual for a male lion to do when taking over a pride? (kill all the cubs)

-How far of a distance can a male lion’s roar carry? (5 miles)

-How many lions usually hunt together? (groups of 2-3)

 

 

 

References:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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