Rationale: The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. This lesson introduces students to understand a helpful strategy known as summarization, which will help them read to learn and understand the text. The goal of this lesson is to teach students how to pick out important information, summarize the text, and then demonstrate their understanding. They will achieve this goal by reading a short article about pandas, identifying important information, deleting the trivial information, and then writing a summary.

 

Materials: Class set of the article "Giant Panda" by Kids National Geographic; poster with the rules of summarization written on it (included below); assessment chart for each student (for teacher use); colored marker for each student; lined paper for each student; projector

 

Procedures:

1. Say:  Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and later told a friend about the reading? Do you read them the whole book, or do you just tell them the important parts of what you read? (Wait for students to answer) Depending on answers: Exactly, you only tell them important parts of the story! This is called a summary of the book or article. Good readers use summarization to help comprehend or understand what they are reading. If you can summarize a book or article, it is a good way to know that you are able to understand what you’ve read.

 

1. Say: Okay, now let's look at our helpful tips for summarizing. Everybody take out a marker and a sheet of paper and write down the tips I am putting on the board. [write tips on board and say them aloud as you write them].

       Tip 1: Read the text carefully.

       Tip 2: Find the main idea.

       Tip 3: Use a pencil or highlighter to mark any important points/details

       Tip 4: Cross out any details that are not important or relevant

       Tip 5: Organize your important points/details into sentences.

 

1. Say: Before we practice summarization can someone tell me anything they know about pandas? [Wait for responses]. Yes, they eat lots of bamboo!! What else? [Wait for responses] Yes, shoots, leaves, fish, and other small animals. Who can tell me how much bamboo accounts for a panda’s diet? [Wait for responses]. Very good, 99 %. Pandas have to eat a lot of bamboo and very fast to stay healthy. Do you think you could eat for 12 hours a day? I don’t think so! It would be unhealthy for us and we wouldn’t have time to sleep!!

 

1. Say: “Can anybody tell me anything they know about pandas?” Give students a few minutes to share any information that they know. “Great! Today we are going to learn even more and read an article about pandas. Pandas are very common in dense bamboo forests, in the misty, rainy mountains of Southwestern China. The panda is one of the rarest mammals in the world. Has anyone ever seen a panda before?” Allow students time to answer if they had ever seen a panda and let the students share what they were like. Pass out article Giant Panda to students. Say: “This article talks about what pandas look like, what they do, where they live, etc. Now, we are going to read this article together as group. We will highlight and/or underline anything that we think is important as we go along. We will also cross out any details that are not super important. Then, we will organize what we have highlighted/underlined into sentences to create our summary.”

 

1. The teacher reads the article out loud to the class, while having them follow along. Stop after every paragraph to mark any important details by highlighting/underlining. Cross out any information that does not seem necessary. Go over any vocabulary words that they do not know (ex: “Does anybody know what the word scarcity means?" Give students time to think of definition. "Scarcity is the state of being scarce or in short sup I ply; shortage. I am going to use scarcity in a sentence- After a harsh storm, there was a scarcity of bread and milk in the grocery stores. Would somebody else like to try to use breeding in a sentence?” Allow students time to think, and then take 1 or 2 volunteers to share their sentences.) Let's look at the first two paragraphs. What is an important word, or main idea, in the first paragraph? The first paragraph talks about where pandas live. That is our main idea. So all of our important information will be about their living conditions. What is something important that is says about where they live? Yes, it says they live in bamboo forests. Is it important that the pandas are black and white? No, this does not have anything to do with living conditions, so this is trivial information, so we can cross it out. What does the next paragraph talk about? What is the key umbrella term, or main idea? Yes, the main idea is their diet. So, everything important in this paragraph will be about their food. Let’s highlight important information. What do pandas eat? Yes, they eat bamboo shoots and leaves, this is important and it has to do with their diet, so we will highlight this. How much do pandas eat? Pandas eat 15 % of their body weight of bamboo a day in 12 hours. They also eat other vegetation, fish, or small animals because bamboo is not very nutritious. This is all important information that has to do with the main idea of the paragraph- diet. Therefore, we will highlight this information, and cross out the information that is not as important." Below is an example of the highlighted text for the first two paragraphs.

 

High in dense bamboo forests in the misty, rainy mountains of southwestern China lives one of the world's rarest mammals: the giant panda, also called the panda. Only about 1,500 of these black-and-white relatives of bears survive in the wild. 

 

Pandas eat almost nothing but bamboo shoots and leaves. Occasionally they eat other vegetation, fish, or small animals, but bamboo accounts for 99 percent of their diets. Pandas eat fast, they eat a lot, and they spend about 12 hours a day doing it. The reason: They digest only about a fifth of what they eat. Overall, bamboo is not very nutritious. To stay healthy, they have to eat a lot—up to 15 percent of their body weight in 12 hours—so they eat fast.

 

1. Discuss the rest of article with the students, going over main ideas. “What is the main topic of this article? Right, it’s about Pandas. I would like for you all to write 4 or 5 sentences that summarizes the article. The main idea of the article should be your topic sentence (ex. Pandas survive from eating bamboo).” Give students time to write down their summaries on a piece of paper. “Let’s go over some of the things you wrote.” Call on students to read off one of their sentences. Write their sentences on the board. This way, you are creating a summary with the class. “Good job class! We just wrote a summary!” Below is an example summary.

 

​“Pandas are black and white bears that live in dense bamboo forests in southwest China. They mainly eat bamboo but need lots of it in order to stay alive. Pandas have specialized gripping in order to hold the bamboo. If bamboo is limited then it will be hard for pandas to survive.”

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1. Say: “Now I am going to let you write a summary on your own. I will give you another article to read.” Hand out article Caracal. “This article is about animals called caracal. This article describes what caracals do, where they live, what they look like, etc. Has anybody ever seen a caracal? Can you share with the class what they were like?" Allow students time to share with the class. Say: "Some people say that they wish they were caracals so they could be very fast Remember to highlight any main points and cross out anything that is not important that may become distracting. After you read the article, write 4 or 5 sentences to summarize.” Walk around to monitor students and help any that may need your assistance. Take up their summaries and articles when they are done. This is their assessment.

 

Assessment:

When Summarizing, did the Student…

Underline/highlight important information     yes/no

Cross out unimportant information                  yes/no

Find main idea or topic                                     yes/no

Write a summary (4 to 5 sentences)                yes/no

Resources: 

 

Panda article: “Giant Panda” National Geographic Kids. 2017.

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/giant-panda/ - giant-panda-tree.jpg

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Caracal article: “Caracal” National Geographic Kids.2017. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/caracal/#caracal-kittens.jpg

 

Chloe Harbison, Sippin’ and Summarizing:https://harbisonn1221.wixsite.com/chloeharbison/reading-to-learn