Sum It Up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reading to Learn

Taylor Britton

 

Rationale: The ultimate goal for readers is to be able to comprehend what they are reading. Summarizing is one strategy that will help them comprehend, which means to identify and recall main ideas in a text. This lesson is to teach students how to summarize by following several steps in order to better comprehend what they are reading and pick out important details in a text. A summarizing check list will be provided to the students while they practice their skills.

 

Materials: class copies of Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap? And Polar Bears Listed as Threatened. Summarizing check list on poster board: Delete unimportant information, delete repeated information, what info is important?, create a topic sentence. Summarizing checklist. Smart board.

 

Procedures:

• Say: Today we are going to learn how to summarize! Does anyone know what summarizing means? Summarizing means to find the main idea or most important information in a text. Summarizing helps us comprehend our stories that we read so it is important to know how to summarize. Who can tell me what comprehension means? Right! Comprehension means to be able to understand something. So summarize is one of the steps to help us understand or comprehend what we are reading. (Review with students the steps presented on the poster board) first, we need to delete unimportant information because that information doesn't help us understand the text. Second, we need to delete repeated information because that information has already been stated. Third, we need to pick out important information because that gives us details about the text. Lastly, create a topic sentence this helps us know what the main idea is and what the overall text is about.

• Say: Now before we practice our summarization skills lets learn some helpful vocabulary! Look at the word Pollute. Pollute or pollution means the presence in or introduction into the environment of a substance or thing that has harmful or poisonous effects. So, when you throw your trash out the window of a car that is you polluting our environment or if someone spills a substance like oil into the lake that is polluting the lake. Can anyone think of anything else that could pollute our environment? Watch me use it in a sentence: The fisher man polluted the river when he poured out his left over gas into the water. Now yall try finishing these sentences: The Ocean is full of …… that harm our sea life. The sides of roads are full of trash, where people ……our environment. Good! Now everyone write their own sentence using pollute or pollution. (After students have finished coming up with their sentence allow a couple to read them out loud.)

• It is time to practice our summarizing skills. (go over check list again explicitly) Now I am going to show you how this works. I am going to leave alone any unimportant information or repeated information (tell students that they can cross out the left alone  info if it helps). I will underline any important information. Then I will find the topic sentence and summarize the paragraph in one sentence. Watch me.

  Plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels and pollute the environment. In fact, Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water bottles a year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles, manufacturers use 17 million barrels of crude oil. That’s enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months. Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle. So why don’t more people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet? Some people drink bottled water because they think it is better for them than water out of the tap, but that’s not true. In the United States, local governments make sure water from the faucet is safe. There is also growing concern that chemicals in the bottles themselves may leach into the water.

   

  As I am leaving unimportant or repeated information alone, I am underlining information that is important that we have to have to understand. Now I am going to create a topic sentence, a question I may ask myself is “What is this passage about? Or “What is the problem or solution here?” I left alone sentences like In fact, Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water bottles a year to the problem. This sentence does not give us as much information as the next sentence about manufactures, it is just extra information.

   

  My summary: Plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels and pollute the environment this is because people think the faucet water is not safe and will only drink from plastic water bottles.

   

• Say: Now lets try summarizing these sentences together: Everyone look at this paragraph. (put on smart board) Remember our summarizing checklist! (point to poster) We are going to cross out unimportant information and repeated information. Then underline important information, topic sentence is last!

 

 

People love the convenience of bottled water. But maybe if they realized the problems it causes, they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a refillable steel container instead of plastic. Plastic bottle recycling can help—instead of going out with the trash, plastic bottles can be turned into items like carpeting or cozy fleece clothing. Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to disintegrate.

 

Topic: If people realize the problems plastic bottles cause then maybe plastic bottle pollution can stop bad habits.

 

Why? Because plastic bottles that are not recycle take hundreds of years to disintegrate and end up in our rivers, lakes, and oceans.

 

Summary: Plastic bottles if recycled can be turned into items that help our environment like carpeting or cozy fleece clothing, rather than ending up in our rivers, lakes, and oceans.

 

• Say: Okay to practice our summarizing skills on our own you are going to read the entire National Geographic article on This article is going to explain to you why polar bears are being threatened, so you will have to read to figure out what is going on with our beloved polar bears. I want you to write a summary sentence for each paragraph. Do not forget to follow the summarizing checklist; I expect to see each step.

• Assessment: I will use the checklist below to grade the students summarizing skills. I will also ask comprehension questions to check for understanding.
  
  
  
   

   

Steps:

                                                                              Yes or No

Mark out unimportant information

 

Mark out repeated information

 

Underline important information

 

Topic sentence

 

 

Comprehension questions:

• Name two reasons why the polar bears are threatened.

• Where do the polar bears live?

• What type of animal does the U.S. classify polar bears as?

• Why do you think it is important to save the polar bears?

 

References:

Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap? National Geographic Kids. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/water-bottle-pollution/

 

Polar Bears Listed as Threatened. National Geographic Kids. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/animalsnature/polar-bears-threatened/

 

Lesson: Mary Claire Spell. Summarization About Animal. https://sites.google.com/site/mcsemergentliteracydesign/home/summarization

 

Back to handoffs: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Handoffs.html