Reading to Learn Lesson
Rational: Reading comprehension is the main goal of reading. It involves understanding the main point of the passage. Summarization is a great tool to use to gain this skill. In this lesson, students will learn to summarize by crossing out information that is not important, highlighting the important information and describing the key points in their own words.
Materials:
Poster with steps for summarization
Poster with the first and second paragraphs
Sharpie/poster marker
Highlighter for teacher and for each student
Notebook paper
Pencils
Copies of the article for each student
Comprehension quiz for each student
Procedures:
1. Say: “Good readers are not good readers because they remember every detail. They are good readers because they are able to pick out the most important information and remember it in their own words. This is called summarizing. We will be working on learning how to summarize texts one paragraph at a time. It is important to look for main ideas.”
2. Review the poster with steps for summarization. Say: “When we summarize, it is important to cross out information that is not important or that is repeated. Next, we need to point out the main ideas and highlight them. After we have done these two steps, now we can write the main ideas in a topic sentence in our own words. I will read the first two paragraphs of the article we will read today as an example.”
3. Give an engaging book talk: Say” Sea Otters are cute little mammals that spend most of their life in the water. What do you all know about sea otters? (wait for a response) What do you think sea otters eat? (wait for responses) Lets read the article and see!”
4. Say: “Before we read the article, we are going to go over some key words.” Provide sample sentences using each word. Example: Say: “Carnivore is one of the vocabulary words we are going to go over, what do you all think it means? (wait for answer) A carnivore is an animal that eats meat from smaller animals. Which one of these animals is a carnivore? 1. Cow 2. Lion 3. Deer”
a. WORDS: carnivore, entangle, aquatic, extinction
5. Hang poster with paragraphs one and two. Pass out articles, pencils, paper, and highlighters to students. Say: “We are going to go over the first two paragraphs of this article together. Follow along on your copy.” Read through both paragraphs. Say: “In the first paragraph we’re going to highlight the entire sentence because it has important information. In the second paragraph we can cross out the 1st sentence because it is not important. Let’s highlight the 2nd and 3rd sentences because they have important information. Now let’s summarize! (write) Sea otters entangle themselves in seaweed and kelp to keep from moving in the sea. They use their chests and rocks to open shellfish. They also eat other aquatic creatures.”
6. Say: “Now I want you to read the rest of the article and do the things we went over. Remember: Cross out unimportant ideas, highlight important ideas, and summarize the main ideas in your own words. You can write down these summaries on the notebook paper.”
Assessment: Pick up the summaries of the articles as well as the articles themselves. Give a short quiz to each student.
Quiz: 1. Where do sea otters give birth?
2. How do sea otters clean their coat?
3. How do sea otters stay warm?
4. What were sea otters hunted for?
5. Where are sea otters found?
Answers: the water, they wash their coat with their paws in the water, their waterproof fur traps air to keep them insulated, their fur, along the cost of the pacific ocean in north America and Asia.
References:
Summarizing with silky the snake- https://hanhardin1020.wixsite.com/readinglessondesigns/reading-to-learn-design
Sailing through Summarization- https://carlymgrisham.wixsite.com/mscarlyreading/reading-to-learn