Slowly Summarizing with Sloths
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Reading to Learn
Rationale: Now that students have learned to decode words and read fluently, the next step is to comprehend what we are reading. This is what applies to this lesson: “Reading to Learn”. Summarization is an important resource for readers to know how to use, so they can more easily comprehend texts by sorting through the important information and the not-so important information. This way you can grab the main ideas of the text.Throughout this lesson, students will learn how to separate these items of information and how to focus on the main ideas of the story.
Materials:
- pencil
- paper
- highlighter
- red pen
- copies of “Sloth” article for each student
- whiteboard and dry erase markers
- comprehensive quiz for each student
- summarization checklist
Procedures:
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Say: “Today, we are going to learn about how to summarize and how to identify the main points of a story. Summarization is when we can pick out the important facts and separate them from the not so important parts. These summarizations help give us the main ideas of the story, so we don’t have to remember every little word of the story. Comprehending a story is also very important because it helps with our understanding of the reading. So, today we are going to be practicing our skills with summarizing and identifying main points.”
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Say: “We are going to practice this summarizing strategy. What do we think is important when we are trying to summarize? [Wait for responses.] That’s right! There are three important rules we must follow to summarize correctly. One rule is that we need to leave out information that isn’t as important as other information in the reading. This spares us the time and energy of having to read through the entire reading again just to find a small bit of information. The next rule is to identify multiple important facts or events in the text we are reading. The last rule is that we must create a topic sentence to fit all of the main ideas into in just a few words."
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Say: “Before we start reading, we are going to look at a vocabulary word that is in the text we are about to read. The word is predator. Who thinks they know what a predator is? [Students will raise hand and get called on individually.] All of those were such great explanations, but a predator is an animal who preys on other animals or people. Now that we know what it means, can you give me an example? [Wait for responses]. Yes, those are all great examples. I imagine the example of a cheetah. How can we make this into a sentence using my predator example of a cheetah? [Wait for more responses.] Great. Cheetahs are the predators of awaiting clueless antelope. Now we know these words mean, so make sure to remember this word when it comes up in our text.”
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Say: “Alright, class. We know now the three most important rules of summarization and our vocabulary word for our text. Now, I am going to be giving everyone a copy of the article we are reading today: “Sloth”. Sloths are some of the most chill animals that are alive. They move super slowly and don’t do very much. What do they do when they are attacked or how do they even go to the bathroom? We are going to read this text to find out. I now want you to read this silently, and after everyone has read it, we will break down our text about sloths. Let's do an example! While I was reading, I noticed this sentence: "There are two main species of sloth, identified by whether they have two or three claws on their front feet." Is this an important sentence or no? [Listen for answers from students.] That's right! It is important! Now, you continue reading this text. While you read, I want you the think about which parts of the reading are important to the reader and which are repeated or unimportant for the greater knowledge of the text. When you come across a sentence that is important, I want you to highlight it in yellow. If you think a sentence is not relevant, I want you to underline it in red pen. [Give students time to read the story to themselves and identify key information on their own.]”
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Say: “Alright, class. We are going to now go over some important parts of the text that we need in our summary for this article. I want you to raise your hand and tell me what you highlighted in blue that could be a possible main point. Once you have stated the sentence, I will write it down on our white board for everyone to see. For example, one of my main points would have been there are two different kinds of sloths that have differing personalities and tendencies. Let’s write that one down to start us off. [Give students time to respond and share their key points. Write them down on white board.] Great! Now that we have some key points, let’s narrow it down to three big key points. [Allow students to vote on their favorites and then tally the results.] Okay, class. Using our three main points, I want you to get out pencil and paper and write a topic sentence that includes our three points about what our article is about.”
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Say: “Awesome guys! Today, we have learned a lot about summarizing and how to comprehend what we read while we are reading it. The last thing you need to do today is take a five-question quiz to see how well your summarizing skills helped with your comprehension skills. [Give out the comprehension quiz to each student.] You will each work on this individually, and there is no wrong answer. Just try your best to remember what you can! Raise your hand when you are finished, and I will come around and take your papers from you.”
Assessments:
Comprehension Quiz:
FOR STUDENT:
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What type of animal is a sloth?
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How are sloths identified into their species?
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Where did sloths live?
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What kind of diet do sloths have?
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How often do sloths come down from their tree? For what reasons?
Summarization Quiz:
FOR TEACHER:
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Student’s name: ______________
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Summary Checklist:
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Removed the unimportant parts of the text? ____
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Wrote the main ideas of the article? ____
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Wrote a couple good sentences? ____
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Selected important points from article? ____
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Was able to answer all comprehension questions? ____
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References:
Caitlin Gerard, “Erupting with Summarization”: https://clgerard27.wixsite.com/my-site/reading-to-learn-design
Peyton James, “Skiing into Summarization”: https://sites.google.com/view/peytonjames/reading-to-learn-design
Sloth Article: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/facts/sloth
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