Rationale: As children become more fluent and accurate readers, it is important to begin teaching them comprehension and recall skills. When students start to gain reading comprehension, you know they are spending less time decoding the words in the text they are reading. This is a metacognitive shift that usually takes place from third to fifth grade. Summarization is an important part of reading comprehension because it is not possible to remember everything in a text, it is more important to remember just the important information. This lesson models summarizing text and provides students with the opportunity to summarize what they are reading. When a student is able to summarize a text, they capture the meaning of the article. This enables them to become a better reader, writer, and researcher. During this lesson, the teacher will model how to create an accurate summary of information, and in the end students will be able to create their own summary and answer important questions about the text they read. This skill will lead students on their way to becoming successful readers in and out of the classroom.
Materials:
•“Google Searches for Its Voice” article from Time for Kids (one copy for each child)
•Dictionaries for every child
•Paper
•Pencils
•Whiteboard
•Dry erase markers
Procedures:
1. Say: “How many of you guys have been asked to read an article or book and explain what it was about? Did you have a hard time remembering all the information given to you in the story? Today we are going to learn some ways to make that easier! We are going to learn something called summarization. Summarization is the ability to say in a few words or sentences what a whole article or book is about. We are going to start class by reading an article about Google from Time for Kids.”
2. (Pass out articles) Say: “Who has ever asked Google a question? What kind of questions do you think Google is asked daily? In the article we are about to read, researchers are trying to figure out the most common Google searches and how they can improve Google’s answers.”
3. Say: “Everyone is going to sit at their desk and read the article quietly to yourself. Can anyone tell me why we might want to read silently first? Silent reading is important because it allows us to read at our own pace. We can read over the trivial details, but we can also stop and underline or highlight the important details of the article as well. If you come to a word you do not know, take a moment to look it up in the dictionary.”
4. Say: “There is a lot of information in this article. There is no way that a person can memorize everything presented in this article by reading it just a few times. It is important when summarizing to pick out the most important information presented by leaving out the trivial details. An example of a trivial detail would be ‘His coworker Emma Coats chimes in to explain. “It was trick or treat, and one response was ‘smell my feet.’” People gave it a thumbs-down, she says.’ Although this is an interesting fact, it is not one of the main points that the author is trying to make. Can someone raise their hand and read another example of a trivial detail in the article.” (Wait for children to respond)
5. Say: “To help us summarize this article we are going to make an outline on the board with the title and subheadings from the article. Who can explain to me what a subheading is? Who can tell me the title? What is the first subheading? (Continue writing outline on the board) How do you think an outline can help us summarize an article?” (Children respond)
6. Assessment Say: “I would like everyone now to get out a piece of paper and a pencil. We are going to write a brief paragraph summarizing what this article is about. Remember when summarizing it is important to leave out the trivial details and just put the main points the author is trying to make or the "chunk" of the information. Concentrate on writing a short and concise paragraph, but do not leave out any main points.”
Here is an example how to summarize one of the paragraphs.
Ryan Germick is the principal personality designer for Google Assistant. He is the person that comes up with ideas to help Google seem real. He has spent many months brainstorming responses to questions people might ask Google. Germick and his team hope to have more normal and accurate responses to Google questions in the near future. The finished product they want to have is Google being able to understand anything anyone says to it.
Ask yourself questions like:
What is the job of Google’s personality team? What is the future goal of Google Assistant?
By asking yourself important questions from the text you can decide what facts are important and which are not. This is also an opportunity to look up any vocabulary words you do not know.
To assess, I will use the checklist listed below to grade the students summarizing skills.
When summarizing, did the student:
Delete unimportant information?
Delete repeated information?
Select a topic?
Write an inclusive, accurate, simple topic sentence to summarize the passage?
I will also ask comprehension questions like:
What is the job of Google’s personality team?
What is the future goals?
References:
Time for Kids. Google Searches for Its Voice. https://www.timeforkids.com/g34/google-searches-for-voice/
Muller, Paige. "Summarizing with Skunks"
http://pkm0005.wixsite.com/teacherwebpage/reading-to-learn
Horizons:
http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/horizons.html
Hey Google, What is Summarization?
Sarah Allaway
