Reading to Learn

Chillin’ with Summarization

A Reading to Learn Lesson Design

Rationale: After learning to read fluently, students can begin to learn from what they read. The goal of reading is to comprehend the text. One-way students can enhance their reading comprehension is through summarization! This lesson will help student’s compact information so that it is easy to remember! Students will learn to mark out unnecessary information, highlight important information and find umbrella terms in order to bring out the main ideas of a text. Let’s get to summarizing!

Materials

Paper
Pencil
Highlighters
Class set of National Geographic’s “Polar Habitat” Article
Summarization Rules on Poster
- Leave out unimportant information.
- Leave our repeated information.
- Highlight important information.
- Find umbrella terms.
- Create a topic sentence.

Summarization Checklist Rubric
Comprehension Quiz

Procedures:

Say: “Have any of you ever told your parents about a cool book that you read, and they ask you what it was about?” (Wait for response.) “Was it hard for you to remember everything that happened in the book?” (Wait for response.) “It is not uncommon to forget what you read! Today we are going to learn about summarization! Summarization helps us remember what we read! Can anyone tell me what a summary is?” (Wait for response.) “Yes, that’s right! A summary is a collection of all the important information in a story! Do you think we should include all the information from the text in our summary?” (Wait for response.) “Of course not! We just want to include the important information so that it is easier to remember what the text was about!”
Say: “Before we start reading our article, I am going to show you one way to summarize a text. When we read a new story, the first thing we need to find is the main idea. After you find the main idea, highlight facts that support the main idea. To help with this, you can ask yourself “What is the text about?” or “What is the author trying to tell me?”. Once you answer these questions, you will have an ‘umbrella term’ or general term, that tells the most important parts of a text. This helps you be able to create a topic sentence for your summary.”
Say: “I have a very exciting article for us to read today about polar habitats! Does anyone know what a polar habitat is?” (Wait for response.) “Does this sound like a hot or cold habitat?” (Wait for response.) “Yes! This is a very cold habitat! Habitats like these inhabit animals like polar bears and penguins! Let’s read more about polar habitats and see what else we can learn about them! After you finish reading, we will practice our summarization skills!”
Say: Before we read, I am going to go over some words in the story that might be a little hard. The first word we are going to look at is frigid.” (Write word on the board.) “Frigid means very cold in temperature. Frigid is usually used when talking about the weather. In the article, it says ‘It’s frigid and you’re surrounded by ice.’ This means that the weather around you is very cold. You would not use the word frigid if it is hot or even just warm. Which ones of these sentences uses the word frigid correctly? ‘The wind made the fall air frigid.’ or ‘The beach was frigid in July.’?” (Wait for response.) “That’s right! The first sentence is correct! The first one is right because it is saying that the wind made the fall air cold. That makes sense because it gets cold in the fall. It would be crazy for the beach to be cold in July! Let’s look at another word. Let’s look at the word lumber.” (Write word on the board.) “The word lumber is a verb and it means to move in a slow, heavy, awkward way. The article says, ‘Then a polar bear and her cubs lumber by, and in the ocean behind them a whale erupts from the water.’ This means that the polar bear and her cubs moved slowly and heavily by. Which one of these sentences uses the word lumber correctly? ‘The quarterback lumbered into the end zone at the football game.’ or ‘Sarah lumbered down the stairs after her nap.’?” (Wait for response.) “That’s correct! The second sentence uses the word correctly! The second sentence makes sense because usually when you just wake up you move slowly because you aren’t fully awake yet! Now that we know some of the tough words, we can read the article!”
Say: “Now we are going to read a few lines of the article together! ‘Polar habitats cover the top and bottom of planet Earth at the North and South Poles. The North Pole is surrounded by the Arctic Ocean. There isn’t any land here, just a group of continually shifting ice sheets. Parts of Canada and Greenland are near the North Pole. The South Pole is located on Antarctica. This area has land, but it’s completely covered with a layer of ice that’s almost three miles thick in some places.’ We know that the author is talking about polar habitats, but what other important information is he trying to tell us? I see one important piece of information! ‘Polar habitats cover the top and bottom of planet earth at the north and south pole’! Highlight the important points as we pick them out! This will make it easier to create our topic sentence! I see another important point! The article says the north pole is surrounded by the arctic ocean. It also says that there isn’t any land here just shifting ice sheets. Let’s put these main ideas together to create a topic sentence. ‘Polar habitats cover the north and south pole; however, the north pole does not consist of land, just shifting ice sheets!’”
Say: “Now it is your turn to try our summarizing strategy. Read the first paragraph of the sections titled ‘Brrrr’. When you are done, gather the main points to create a topic sentence.” (Give students time to read.) “What is this paragraph about?” (Give time for response.) “That’s right! It’s about the different temperatures in polar habitats. What are the main points the author is trying to make?” (Give time for response.) “That’s right! The poles are very cold, and the South Pole is colder than the Arctic. Now try to make a topic sentence! (Ex: Both the North and South Pole are very cold, but the South is the coldest with -129 degrees Fahrenheit being the coldest recorded temperature.)
Say: “Now I want you to finish reading the article. As your read I want you to highlight the important facts and write a topic sentence for each paragraph. Remember the steps to creating a topic sentence! After you finish reading and have written a topic sentence for each paragraph, you will have a summary of the article! This summary will help you remember what was important about polar habitats and what wasn’t so important. Be sure what you write is in your own words and when you are done turn in your summary to me. I will give you a quiz to take when you turn in your summary.” Review student’s topic sentences to see if they wrote a successful summary. Use summarization checklist to grade student work. Students will take the comprehension quiz provided to them to see what they learned from the article.

Summarization Checklist Rubric:

Name: _____________________

____ wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph.
____ omitted unimportant / repetitive information.
____ reduces text from original form to summary.
____ highlighted important information.
____ successfully combined important information to form topic sentence.

Comprehension Quiz:

Name: _____________________

What is the weather like in polar habitats?
What is permafrost?
Name two animals that live in polar habitats.
What two seasons do polar regions have?
What is the Arctic considered to be because of the lack of rainfall?

References:

Article: Hurt, A. (2020, September 11). Polar Habitat. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/nature/habitats/polar/

Kacey Kilgore, Whooooo can Summarize https://kaceykilgore5.wixsite.com/literacydesigns/reading-to-learn

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KM