Rationale: Reading comprehension is the overall goal of reading and important part of reading comprehension is getting the overall message of a passage. This lesson will teach students to comprehend text by introducing the summarization strategy. Students will discard unnecessary and redundant information, summarize multiple items and events under umbrella terms, and write a topic sentence that covers the information. Taking these steps, students will attain comprehension through the summarization strategy.
Materials: Poster with summarization steps (written and pictured), poster with the passage, two sheets of notebook paper for each student, pencil for each student, highlighter for each student, sharpie for each student, copies of thee National Geographic article on sea turtles: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/green-sea-turtle/#green-sea-turtle-closeup-underwater.jpg, summarization checklist (one per student; see below), comprehension quiz (one for each student; see below).
Procedures:
1. Say: “When we read a text, we could spend all day trying to remember all the words and details of that text. Good readers do not try to remember every little detail that they read. Instead, they use summarization strategies to remember only the important points the author is making about the topic. Today we are gong to learn and practice three steps that will help us remember the important information we need to understand the text.”
2. Display the poster with three summarization steps and review. Say “When we summarize we are going to do three things:
1st: Cross out any unimportant or repeated information (fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text.
2nd: Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text and write any umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected.
3rd: Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted”
3. Say: “In a few minutes I’m going to show you how I’d do these steps of summary with an article on sea turtles which is what you are going to be reading also. Book talk: How big do you think a sea turtle can get? Most green sea turtles weigh about 300 to 400 pounds! We will be learning more interesting facts about the green sea turtle while reading this article.“
4. Say: “Another important strategy in reading comprehension is learning what words mean. To do this, we are going to go over a few words we will find in this article before we read it [for each word: 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 word for students to complete].
WORDS: species, migrate, propel, clutch, poaching
Example: [migrate] Say: “One of the words in our passage is migrate. Let’s look and become familiar with what this word means.
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Migrate is the action when an animal moves from one region or habitat to another, especially regularly according to the seasons
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During the fall, birds migrate south. During the fall, birds would not migrate to a different park.
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Which of these is an example of migration: a squirrel living in a different tree or whales swimming from Alaska to Mexico in search of warmer water to have their babies.
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Monarch butterflies in the wintertime migrate to (Mexico where the weather is warmer).
5. Hang the poster with the passage next to the poster with the Summarization rules. Give each student a pencil, highlighter, two sheets of notebook paper and a copy of the article.
Say: “here is a paragraph from our article. I am going to show you how I summarize this paragraph and you can follow along and do it with me on your paper. First let’s review our summarization steps.
1st Cross our any unimportant or repeated information (fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text
2nd Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text and write any umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected
3rd Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted
First, I need to cross out any unimportant or repeated information. I can cross out the last sentence because it isn’t important to the main idea of the paragraph. Next, I need to highlight the important information and write my umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected. I think that sentence 1 and 2 are important to the paragraph so I am going to highlight both sentences.
“Green sea turtles spend most of their lives underwater, where they can rest for up to five hours at a time before coming up for air. When active, they typically alternate between being underwater for a few minutes and coming up to the surface to breathe air for a few seconds. Green sea turtles are also known to sunbathe on land.“
I think turtles, underwater, coming up and air are my umbrella terms that give the main idea.
Lastly I am going to form a topic sentence from my highlighted information. By looking at my highlighted information I can come up with this as my topic sentence [write topic sentence below the paragraph on poster so students can see]: Green sea turtles can spend a long period of time underwater without coming up for air unless they are active and need to come up for air more often.”
6. Say: “Now I want you to use the summarization rules we discussed on a paragraph.”
“Unlike most other sea turtles, adult green sea turtles eat a primarily plant-based diet consisting of seaweed and sea grass. Scientists believe these green foods give the sea turtle’s fat its green color. The shell of the green sea turtle is usually shades of a brown or olive color. “
Say: “What unimportant information can we cross out? Yes, we can cross out that last sentence. Now what are we left with? Right, we are left with the first and second sentence. Don’t forget to write three or four umbrella terms that give the main idea. Let’s read these two sentences and try to combine them into one sentence to create a topic sentence. We can combine them and make this topic sentence” Adult green sea turtles eat a mainly plant-based diet and scientist believe these foods give the turtles’ fat its green color.”
7. [Pass out 2 pieces of paper to each student for them to write their topic sentences on] Say: Now I want you to finish reading the article on your own and use your summarizing rules to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have a good summary of the article, which will help you to remember important facts about the green sea turtle. We will have a short quiz after everyone finishes their topic sentences.”
Assessment:
Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:
___________ Collected important information
___________ Ignored trivia and examples in summary
___________ Significantly reduce the text from the original
___________ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
___________ Sentences organized coherently into essay form
Quiz:
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Name one of the two places with the largest nesting population of green sea turtles. [Australia or Costa Rica]
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What do the green see turtles use to propel themselves through the water? [Their strong paddlelike flippers]
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Where do female green sea turtles lay their eggs? [In a nest dug out on the beach]
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What are newly hatched sea turtles at risk of? [Being hunted by animals as they move from their nests to the sea]
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How long can green sea turtles spend underwater without coming up for air? [Up to 5 hours]
References:
Livingston, Mary Lee, Stepping into Summarization https://mbl0025.wixsite.com/mlblivingston/reading-to-learn
Anderson, Paula, Let’s Sea How to Summarize http://pea0002.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn
Murray, Bruce, Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea https://murraba.wixsite.com/lessondesigns2018/donate
Website for Sea Turtle Reading: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/green-sea-turtle/#green-sea-turtle-closeup-underwater.jpg
