Abby Cook
Hunting to Read
Reading to Learn
By: Abby Cook
Rationale:
Once students learn to read correctly and fluently, it is time for students to move onto the next step or level. The next level is learning to read in a way that they can comprehend what they are reading. In other words, children must learn to read in order to learn after they have read. The key component of reading to learn is being able to summarize. There are many different techniques to teach students how to read comprehensively, the main one this lesson will focus on is summarization. Summarizing teaches students how to delete the information that is not needed and use a graphic organizer.
Materials:
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Pencil (1 per child)
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Paper (1 per child)
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Highlighter (1 per child)
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White board
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Dry erase marker
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Sheet of blank paper for summarizing rules
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Sheet of lined paper for summarizing articles
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Copies of the article, “Mountain Lion, Stealthy Stalker” (one per student, one for teacher) published by National Geographic Kids
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Copies of the article, “Cheetah” (one per student, one for teacher) published by National Geographic Kids
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Rubric for grading summaries
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Overhead camera
Procedures:
1. Start off lesson by introducing students to the concept of summarizing
Say: “Today we are going to be learning how to summarize an article! Summarizing is an excellent way to help us understand what we read after we have read it. Summarizing is when you take the entire passage you have read and shrink it down to just the information or events that are most important. We are going to practice how to do this skill with two different articles. We will focus on what the main idea is, what facts support the main idea, and what information we can remove.”
2. Say: “Now we are going to learn the rules for summarizing. I want everyone to make sure they came up and received a piece of paper to fill in the rules as we learn them. I am going to write each rule on the white board and I want you to copy each one onto your paper as you see me writing on the board. Once we finish writing down all of the helpful tips, you can leave this piece of paper on your desk as you read your articles to help you as you read.”
3. Say:
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The 1st step in summarization is: delete trivia and redundancies
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The 2nd step is: superordinate items and events, meaning put them in order from most important to least important.
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The 3rd and final step is: find or compose a statement that covers everything the writer is saying about the topic.
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Say: “The main idea should be supported by the details. Now, write these steps on the piece of paper I gave each of you.” [Ask students to recall the steps to you as you have them write the steps on their paper.] Then, as the bottom the students will write down on their paper some key points to remember in regard to summarizing. For instance, summaries should always be shorter in length than the information you are summarizing.
4. I am going to pass out an article now, “Mountain Lion, Stealthy Stalker.” Give every student a copy and then give the following booktalk, “This article is about a Mountain Lion. Have any of you ever heard of a Mountain Lion? They are very athletic animals that also stalk their prey in a certain way. Today we will get to learn all about how these Mountain Lions catch their food.”Say: “One thing we should go over before we begin is a vocabulary word. Everyone look at the second paragraph towards the middle. Do you see the word ‘endangered?’ Does anyone know what that means? If an animal is endangered, it means it is at risk of disappearing forever. Does everyone understand this? Great! Now, the first thing I want to do is pick out any information in the article that is not important. I do not think we really need to know that female lions have a loud scream to attract the males. Let’s all take our pencil and cross that sentence out.”Next, we need to highlight and locate important pieces of information in the text. For example, when it says, “These cats have a poor sense of smell, but have excellent vision and hearing that help them hunt in the early morning and evening hours,” we need to highlight. Lastly, we need to write our topic sentence. Now we need to create our topic sentence. We know that the article is about mountain lions and the way they hunt, so maybe our topic sentence could be ‘There are many things a mountain lion can do in order to help get their prey.’ Now we can use our topic sentence and the information that we have left to write our summary. On your own paper, write the topic sentence and the rest of the information that we have left in your own words. (Walk around to scaffold the writing.) Another idea would be to use about/point to create the topic sentence. Ask the students, “What is it about?” and “What is the main point?”
5. Now, pass out the article, “Cheetah.” We are going to all read the first two paragraphs as a class and practice how to summarize before you all try on your own. While you are reading the article remember to highlight the important information, and cross out unimportant information. After each paragraph, write a summary sentence asking yourself the questions: What’s the big idea? What’s the point?” [Once student finishes reading paragraph two, stop them.] Okay, so let’s practice summarizing using the second paragraph [display on overhead camera]:
The cheetah’s excellent eyesight helps it find prey during the day. The cheetah is hard to see because its spotted coat blends with the tall, dry grass of the plains. Suddenly, the cheetah makes a lightning dash.
6. First we want to look for the main idea in this sentence. Usually the main idea is relevant to the title of the article or mentioned a lot throughout the article. [Ask what students think is the main point.] Great job! The message that this sentence is trying to get across is that cheetahs hunt for their food. While all of the other information is important for reference purposes, it’s not the absolute most important to us right now for summarizing, so we can cross it out. Your sentence should look like this now, but the remaining part of your sentence should be crossed out [display on overhead camera]:
The cheetah’s excellent eyesight helps it find prey during the day. Suddenly, the cheetah makes a lightning dash.
7. On your new blank piece of lined paper, summarize this main idea. The main idea of this information is that Cheetahs are very fast when they are hunting for prey. (The cheetah’s excellent eyesight helps it find prey during the day. Suddenly, the cheetah makes a lightning dash.)
Say: “Let’s continue to pick out important points in each paragraph of the article. Now that you all did it so well together, I want you to go through and continue reading the article on your own. Summarize as much as you can, highlighting important parts and marking through unimportant details. I’ll come around and check your work.”
8. Everyone’s papers are looking awesome so far! Once you’ve read the entire article and seem to have found the main ideas and supporting details highlighted, I want you to jot down a one-paragraph brief summary on the article. At the bottom of your article, write five new words you have never seen before you read this article and write their definitions/what you think they mean based on the context within the article. Does anybody have any questions? If not, I want you all to begin this. If you think of any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and I will come help you.
Assessment:
Students will be assessed at the end on how well they did on their summaries. I will use this scoring rubric to grade their summaries for the correct information:
Did the student in he/she’s summary…. (yes or no)
-Begin by getting rid of the insignificant information?
-Organize items and events together?
-Select key topic/overall theme?
-Select key information from the article?
-Write a topic sentence or statement that covers everything that is important from the passage of the text?
-List 5 new vocabulary words/definitions at the end?
I will also ask the students a series of comprehension questions to see if they read and understood the article:
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Why can cheetahs hunt well during the day?
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Where do cheetahs hunt mainly?
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What size animals do cheetahs normally eat?
Reference:
National Geographic Kids. “Mountain Lion, Stealthy Stalker”
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mountain-lion/#mountain-lion-on-rock.jpg
National Geographic Kids. “Cheetah”
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/cheetah/#cheetah-running.jpg
Adapted from: Buzzing into Summarization by Kate Farley
