READING TO LEARN DESIGN
Stormy Summaries
Rationale: Summarization is one of the most powerful strategies for comprehending text. It is very important for students to do this while reading. During this lesson, students will learn to summarize. Summarization can reveal whether a student has fully grasped the importance of the reading they were given. Students will learn how to delete trivial and redundant information in an article about bad weather. They also will learn how to use important information to make a summary.
Materials: Pencil, highlighter, paper, Smartboard, article of “Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?” for every student, article of “How Hurricanes Form” for every student, summarization checklist for teacher
Procedures:
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Begin by explaining to children the meaning and importance of summarization: “Summarization means to figure out the main idea of a text. When we read a text, we could spend all day trying to remember all the words and all the details. Good readers don’t try to remember everything. They use summarization strategies to remember only the important points and main idea of the text. This allows them to reduce a text that may have hundreds or thousands of words to just the important details that help them understand the story.”
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Say: “Let’s go over some rules about summarization before we read about storms. First, we need to delete any trivial information, or unimportant information. Next, we need to read through and delete any repeated information. Then, select or come up with a topic sentence that covers everything the writer is saying about the topic to begin our summary.”
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Say: “I am going to show you how I’d follow these steps of summarization with a paragraph on the weather right before a storm. 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.
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.
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Say: “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. What about details that seem important? Storm clouds pull in warm, moist air is important, so let's highlight it. 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."
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Say: “Now I want you to use the summarizing rules we discussed on the rest of the article in your reading group (group of four). Before we begin reading, let's look an important vocabulary word that you'll be reading from the next article: havoc. A havoc is a destruction. The tornado ripped through the town, causing havoc. What is something that could create a havoc?" Have the students finish this sentence: "The havoc completely damaged the... " Possible answers: car, house, and beach.
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Say: "As you read, cross out any of the information that your group find unnecessary. Use your highlighter to highlight what you all consider to be important information. Then once your group is done reading the article, I want you to summarize, in at least four sentences, what you read as a group. 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.” Give the students enough time to finish the article and summarize. Then allow each group to share with the class their summary. Teacher will be able to assess the student’s performance by room scanning during the activity and listening to their summaries.
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Say: “Now I want you to use the summarizing rules that you just used on your own. Here is an article about “How Hurricanes Form.” You will read this article silently. As you read, remember our summarization rules. Cross out the trivial information, highlight the important information, and summarize in four or more sentences. Once you are done, turn your article over so I know you are done.”
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Have the students answer questions on the back of their article to assess their reading comprehension. 1. What is the eye of the hurricane? 2. What surrounds the eye of the hurricane? 3. Who can predict and track hurricanes? 4. What causes the most fatalities and injuries in a hurricane?
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After they have finished summarizing the article, the teacher will take up the student’s papers with at least four 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.
Collected important information 1/ _____
Ignored trivia and examples in summary 1/ _____
Reduced the text from the original 1/ _____
Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph 4/ _____
Answered reading comprehension questions 4/ _____
References:
Smith, Mary Kate. “Bolting into Summarization”
http://mks0036.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn
“Why is the Weather Calm Before a Storm?”
http://discoverykids.com/articles/why-is-the-weather-calm-before-a-storm/
“How Hurricanes Form”
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/science/hurricane/#hurricane-aletta.jpg
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/horizons.html
