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Galloping Into Summarization!

Reading to Learn Design

Rationale: One of the ultimate goals of reading is comprehension. Once students achieve this level, they are ready to learn strategies that allow them to understand a text better. One of the most effective strategies for understanding a test is called summarization. One of the methods of summarization is called about-point. About-point asks to critical questions regarding the text: A) What is the text about? This is typically an easy question, and it helps to identify the topic that will become the subject. B) What is the main point the writer is making about that topic? Typically, the author makes a variety of points, so the reader should mark out information that is not important, underline important information, and then fine a general term that covers all of the main points. The subject of the topic sentence is based on the main point. The teacher will model to the students how to identify what information is important and needed in writing a summary.

Materials: White board and marker, summarization checklist for every student, class set of Fun Facts about Horses article for each student, comprehension quiz, pencils, paper for all students.

Procedures:

Say: Today I am going to help everyone learn how to summarize! Have any of you ever read a book and wanted to tell all of your friends about it? When you were telling them about it, did you read them the whole book, or did you just tell them the main parts? You probably just told them about the parts you thought were the most important! This is called summarizing. When summarizing, we can find the most important points in the text. Good readers do not try to remember everything, instead they use summarization strategies to recall only important points about the topic. By doing this, readers are able to compact a text into a shorter version that is easy to remember. In addition, summarization is one of the two most important skills for reading comprehension. Therefore, summarization makes it easier to comprehend when we are reading.
Say: About-point is one of the best ways to summarize. In about-point, we ask ourselves two questions. One of the questions is easy, and one is a little more difficult. We use the answers of the questions to create a topic sentence. The easy question is: What is the text about? The harder question is: What is the main point the writer is trying to make about that topic? To answer this question, you have to think of an umbrella term for the important points that the writer is telling. [Write these questions on the board].
Say: In a few minutes, I’m going to show you how I’d do about-point with a paragraph about horses, which is the article you’re going to be reading today. Have you ever been around a horse? What is something horses used to do for humans? How big can they get? These are some of the questions you will be learning to answer today.
Say: Let’s talk about an important vocabulary word you’ll be reading: graze. Graze means animals walk around in fields and eat grass. An example of this word in a sentence would be, “Cows like to graze in a field to get their food and lay down to rest when they are tired.” What are some other animals you think maybe would graze to get their food? Finish this sentence: An animal that I think grazes for food is…
Say: Here is a paragraph from the article:
- Horses are animals that graze, and they mostly eat hay and grasses. They also like peas and beans, fruit like apples, and we’re sure many of you have fed them carrots…they like these too. Considering its size, the horse’s stomach is rather small. So they cannot eat much at a single feeding, and instead prefer to eat little and often. Horses drink 20 to 40 liters of water a day.

This paragraph is about horses, but what important points is the writer making? Horses eat different types of foods: grass, hay, and fruit. However, they can usually be found grazing for food. Putting these together, I can make a topic sentence: Horses enjoy many different types of foods, much like humans, but typically they graze for grass and hay.

6. Say: Now I want you to use an about-point paragraph.

The words “majestic” and “handsome” are often used to describe horses. They are truly beautiful, hoofed animals with good temperament. The have a muscular torso, thick necks and elongated heads. Their manes add to their splendor. Large horses are between 62 to 70 inches tall and weigh 1100 to 1330 lbs. They have very good hearing and sight.

What’s this paragraph about? Yes, horses. What are the main points the author is making? Correct, they are very beautiful and large creatures. Yes, another point is they have good vision and hearing. How could we combine those ideas in one sentence beginning? Horses…? Horses are very large animals who have exceptionally good vision and hearing.

7. Say: Now I’d like you to finish reading the article and use about-point to make a topic sentence for each paragraph! When you are finished, you will have made a good summary of the article, which will help you remember important facts about horses. Don’t summarize examples or trivia; they are written only to help you understand the main ideas. You are writing a short version of the article in your own words, including only the important ideas to remember. And to make sure you remember, we will have a quiz after everyone finishes writing!

Assessment: Collect each student’s summary of the article, and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:

_ Collected important information

_ Ignored trivia and examples in summary

_ Significantly reduced the text from the original

_ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

_ Sentences organized coherently into essay form

Comprehension Quiz:

What is something horses used to do for humans many years ago?
How tall can horses get?
What is one of the senses horses have a good use of? (sight, hearing, smelling, taste, touch)
How many different horse breeds are there?
What does a horses’ name depend on?
Do horses’ colors have specific names?
What kind of food do horses eat?
What are baby horses called?
Do horses like to be around each other?
How fast can horses run?

References:

Fun Facts about Horses, https://www.coolkidfacts.com/horse-facts/

Murray, Bruce. Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea, https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/reading-to-learn

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