Reading to Learn

Busy Bees Flying into Summarization

By: Ashleigh Bonovitch

Rationale:

Once students learn to read fluently, it is time for students to move onto the next step. The next step is learning to read in a way that they can comprehend what they are reading. It is important for students to learn and pull information from text. In other words, children must learn to read to learn after they have learned to read. They key component of reading to learn is being able to summarize. There are many different ways to teach students how to read comprehensively, but the main one this lesson will focus on is summarization. Summarizing teaches students how to delete the information that is not needed and how to use a graphic organizer.

Materials:

Pencil (1 per child)

Paper (1 per child)

Highlighter (1 per child)

White board

Dry erase marker

Sheet of blank paper for summarizing rules

Sheet of lined paper for summarizing articles

Copies of the article, "New Dolphin Species Discovered in Big City Harbor" (one per student, one for teacher) Ker Than. Published by National Geographic News

Copies of the article, "Honeybee Mystery" (one per student, one for teacher) by Catherine Clarke Fox. Published by National Geographic Kids.

Rubric for grading summaries

Overhead camera

Procedures:

Start off lesson by introducing students to the concept of summarizing.

Say: “Today, we are going to be learning how to summarize an article! Summarizing is a great way to help us understand what we read after we read it. Summarizing is when you take the entire passage you have read and shrink it down to just the information or events that are the most important. We are going to practice how to do this skill with two different articles. We will focus on what the main idea is, what facts support the main idea, and what information we can take out. Does anyone have any questions?”

Say: “We are first going to learn the rules for summarizing. Did everyone get a piece of paper to fill in the rules as we learn them? I am going to write each rule on the white board and I want you to copy each one onto your paper as you see me writing it on the board. Once we finish writing down all of the helpful tips, you can leave this piece of paper on your desk as you read your articles to help you as you read. You can refer to it when you need to be reminded of the rules!”

Say:

The first step is to delete trivia and redundancies, which is information that is very repetitive.

The second step is finding the important information and highlighting it. In other words, subordinate items and events.

The final step is to make a statement that covers everything the writer is saying about the topic.

Say: “The main idea should be supported by all the details. Next, please write these steps on the piece of paper I gave each of you. [They can look I wrote on the board] Then, at the bottom the students will write down on their paper some key points to remember in regards to summarizing. For instance, summaries should always be shorter in length than the information you are summarizing.”

Now I’m going to pass out an article, “New Dolphin Species Discovered in Big City Harbor.” Give every student a copy and then give the following booktalk,

Say: “This article is about a new species of dolphin that was discovered in Australia. How do you think this species of dolphin will be different than other dolphins that you have seen?” (Article is short so that will not overwhelm them) Great! Now, the first thing I want to do is pick out any information in the article that is not as important. I don't think we really need to know that Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia. Let's cross that out with our pencils. Next, we need to highlight and locate important pieces of information in the text. For example, when it says, “The new dolphin has been named the Burrunan dolphin, after an Aboriginal phrase meaning "large fish of the porpoise kind," we need to highlight the name of the new dolphin with our highlighters. Next, we need to create our topic sentence. Our topic sentence is what gives the article a good name and overall title. So we can be thinking “What is it about? What is the main point? We know that the article is about a new species of dolphin, so maybe our topic sentence could be a new species of dolphin is discovered in Australia! Now we can use our topic sentence and the information that we have left to write our summary. On your paper, write our topic sentence and the other information that we have left in your own words. (Walk around and help with writing.)

Now pass out the article “Honeybee Mystery.”

Say: “We’re going to read an article about honeybees! Can anyone tell me something about honeybees? (Give a few seconds of wait time in order to get them thinking.) We’re going to all read the first two paragraphs as a class and practice how to summarize before you all try on your own. We will review vocabulary also. Pay attention to words that you may not recognize because you will need to write vocabulary on your own in the next article. While you are reading the article remember to highlight the important information with your highlighter, and cross out the unimportant information with your pencil. After each paragraph, write a summary sentence asking yourself the questions: What’s is it about? What’s the point?” [Once student finishes reading paragraph two, stop them.] Okay, so let’s practice summarizing using the second paragraph” [display on overhead camera]:

Bees give us a lot more than delicious honey. They are pollinators—they enable plants to produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next. The wind pollinates oats, corn, and wheat, but many other plants (like apple and cherry trees and melon vines) depend on insects, bats, and birds.

Say: “Boys and girls, I think pollen is a good vocabulary word. I can tell from context that it involves bees and plants, but what is it exactly? (Give a few seconds wait time) This will be our example vocabulary word so that you can do this in the future with your vocabulary words you find in your article. Pollen is the yellow powder that plants and flowers have. It is used to help make new flowers. Pollen can make us sneeze in the springtime! Can someone give me a sentence with the word pollen in it? That’s right! Pollen is in the middle part of the flower! Do we ever see pollen in our cars?

Say: “Now, our first step is to look for the main idea in this sentence. Usually the main idea is relevant to the title of the article or mentioned a lot throughout the article. [Ask what students think is the main point.] Great job! The message that this sentence is trying to get across is that bees are pollinators. While all of the other information is important for reference purposes, it’s not the most important to us right now for summarizing, so we can cross it out. Your sentence should look like this now, but the remaining part of your sentence should be crossed out” [display on overhead camera]:

Bees give us a lot more than yummy honey. They are pollinators, they help plants produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next.

8. Say: “Now, on your lined paper, summarize the main idea. The main idea of this information is that Bees give us a lot more than yummy honey. They are pollinators, they help plants produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next.”

Say: “Let’s continue to pick out important points in each paragraph of the article. Now that you all did it so well together, I would love for you to go through and continue reading the article by yourself this time. Summarize as much as you can, highlighting important parts and marking through unimportant details. I’ll come around and check your work.”

Say: “Everyone’s papers are looking great so far! Once you’ve read the whole article and find the main ideas and details highlighted, I want you to write down a one-paragraph brief summary on the article. At the bottom of your article, write five new words you have never seen before you read this article and write their definitions/what you think they mean based on the context within the article. Does anybody have any questions? If you think of any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and I will come help you! You are doing great being my busy bees as we fly through summarization!”

Assessment:

Students will be assessed at the end on how well they did on their summaries. I will use this scoring rubric to grade their summaries for the correct information:

Did the students’ summary include…

Yes

Begin by getting rid of the insignificant information?

Organize items and events together?

Select key topic/overall theme?

Select key information from the article?

Write a topic sentence or statement that covers everything that is important from the passage of the text?

List 5 new vocabulary words/definitions at the end?

I will also ask the students a series of comprehension questions to see if they read and understood the article:

What do plants do beside produce honey?

Why do scientists believe bees are dying?

Why do plants produce honey?