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Slithering Into Summarization 

Reading to Learn Lesson Design

By: Reilly Davis 

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Rationale: Summarizing and reading comprehension are two key factors that are needed in order to be a successful reader. This lesson is designed to teach reading comprehension through the strategy of summarization. After reading a text, summarizing is a useful tool that helps students to understand what they read. A key method in summarization is the ‘about-point’ method. When reading a text, the reader must pause and ask two questions. The first question is: ‘what is this text about?’ and the second question is: ‘what are the main points/topics that the author is trying to write about in this text?’ Using these two questions, students will be able to pinpoint some of the parts of the text that they believe to be the most important and this will assist them in summarizing texts. 

 

Materials: 

• Copies of Britannica Kids Snake Article 

• Pencils

• Paper 

• Summarization check (needed for teacher)

• Comprehension checklist 

 

Procedures: 

1. Say: “summarizing is a part of reading that requires us to remember the important parts of what we just read. It can be hard to remember what the entire story is about, so today we are going to learn some strategies to help us summarize and fully understand what we are reading. We are going to read a text, summarize the key points, and then it will be easier to remember what the text was about.”

2. Say: “One of the best strategies that we will use to help us summarize is the ‘about-point’ strategy. With this strategy, we are going to ask ourselves two questions after we read. The 1st question is ‘what is this text about?’ and ‘what is the main idea of this text?’ The way that we will come up with the main idea is to think of an ‘umbrella term’ for all the key points. An umbrella term will help narrow down all the points of the text into a few key important ones that will help us with summarizing the text.” 

3. Say: “in a minute we are going to use this about-point method in an article that we will read about snakes. How many of you have ever seen a snake? How many of you know where you typically see snakes? What are some interesting things you already know about snakes? Let’s practice some vocabulary. We know that a snake is a reptile. I am going to model how to use the word reptile in a sentence. 

• During my time at the zoo, I saw many snakes in the reptile exhibit. 

• A question using this word--- What is a reptile and what makes them different from mammals?  

• Now it is your turn to use a sentence with the word reptile in it. Raise your hand and I will call on you to say your sentence.

 In this article that we are about to read, we are going to learn a little bit more about snakes and what makes them special.” 

1. Say: “Now I am going to pass out the article and I want everyone to look over it quietly, and we will read it together once they are all passed out”

2. Say: “I am going to read the introduction paragraph and I want everyone to follow along on their paper. “A snake is a reptile with a long, slender body but no arms or legs. Snakes are closely related to lizards. There are about 2,900 species, or kinds, of snakes. The best-known snakes include cobras, vipers, boas, and pythons.” (https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/snake/353785). 

Say: “This introduction is all about snakes. What are some key points that the author wants us to know? Snakes are reptiles. They have long bodies with no legs or arms. There are many different types of snakes. If I combine these important ideas, I can create a topic sentence: There are many different types of snakes, but all snakes are reptiles that have long bodies with no legs or arms.”

1. Say: ‘Now, we are going to try and use the about-point strategy in another paragraph:

“Snakes are vertebrates, or animals with a backbone. The backbone is long and flexible. Snakes grow throughout their lives. The longest known snake is the reticulated python, which can grow to 32 feet (10 meters). The giant anaconda is usually not as long but is much heavier. The smallest snakes are the blind snakes. Some of them are barely 4 inches (10 centimeters) long.”

Say: “What is this paragraph about? What are the main points the author is trying to get across? 

• Snakes are vertebrates 

• They have long backbones 

“How can we combine all these key points into one topic sentence that will give us a glimpse into what this whole paragraph is about? Good. Snakes are vertebrates which means they have long back bones that are flexible.” 

1. Say: “now we are going to independently read the rest of the article and I want each of you to write a topic sentence for each of the remaining paragraphs. When you finish, you will now have many topic sentences, which will result in a good summary of the article about snakes. This will help you to remember all the fun facts we learned about snakes in the article. I want everyone to make sure you’re only picking out the key important parts of the paragraphs, and writing the topic sentences in your own words. When everyone is finished, we will have a short quiz over the reading.” 

 

Assessment: Collect each student’s paper with their topic sentences and summaries, and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:

 _  Contains key important details

__ Ignored ‘fluff’ and unimportant details

__ Reduced the text from the original

__ Contained an idea from each paragraph

 

Quiz:

1. What area of the world has the greatest variety of snakes?

2. Snakes are vertebrates, which means what?

3. What covers the body of a snake? 

4. What do most snakes eat?

5. What helps protect snakes from their enemies?

6. Snakes body temperatures change with their surrounding environment temperature. What kind of animal does this make them? 

 

References:  

Beau, Emily. “Surprise Let’s Summarize” : https://emilyannebeau123.wixsite.com/teachingfluency/reading-to-learn

 

Article: https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/snake/353785

 

Image:

https://media.giphy.com/media/jCodV34MoczjW/giphy.gif