Reading to Learn

Sailing Through Summarization

Reading to Learn

Carly Grisham

Rationale: Summarization is one of the two most powerful strategies for comprehending text. Summarization is an important literacy goal because it helps students to understand what has been read. By teaching children how to delete useless and redundant information and finding or creating a topic sentence that covers the main idea of the text, we can help students remember information that they read and gain better reading comprehension. This lesson will teach students how to summarize what they are reading and ultimately learn how to find meaning in what they read.

Materials:

Pencil and paper for each student
Individual copies of an article written for kids on spacewalks from timeforkids.com (URL below)
Summarization checklist and comprehension quiz (below)

Procedures:

Explain to children why summarization is important: “When we read a text, we could spend all say trying to remember all the words and all the details. Good readers don’t try to remember everything. They use summarization strategies to remember only the important points the author is making about the topic. In that way, they reduce a text that may have hundreds or thousands of words to a compact gist that is easy to remember.”
Say: “When we summarize, we need to know some important rules. First, we need to delete any unimportant information. Next, we need to read through and delete any repeated information. Then, select or invent a topic sentence to begin our summary.”
Say: “In a few minutes, I’m going to show you how I’d do these steps of summary with a paragraph on a spacewalk, which is the article you are going to be reading today. Do you know what a spacewalk is? Do you know who does spacewalks or why they are done? What do you do to prepare for a spacewalk? These are some of the questions you will be learning to answer today.”
Let’s talk about an important vocabulary word you’ll be reading: environment. An environment is the place where you are, or your surroundings. Many times our environment refers to where we live, but it can also refer to where you are at any given time. For example, “She has a very loving home environment because she is surrounded by family and friends.” What environment do you spend most of your time in? Finish this sentence: I like my school environment because…”
“Here is a paragraph from the story:”

The ISS has been in constant use for 15 years, and has hosted more than 200 people, including astronauts, cosmonauts, and private tourists. The station needs to be upgraded from time to time. During their EVA, Kelly and Lindgren did basic electrical work, such as attaching new cables that will provide power to docking ports on the station. The ports will be used when new crew and cargo vessels arrive at the ISS in 2017.

This paragraph is about the space station and the work done during the spacewalk, but what information is unnecessary in this passage? I can delete all of the trivia and examples, so I am left with “The station needs to upgraded from time to time. Kelly and Lindgren did basic electrical work.” Examining the information remaining, I can make a topic sentence: Periodically, the space station needs to be upgraded.

“Now I want you to use the summarizing rules we discussed on a paragraph:”

During a spacewalk, the simplest maintenance work becomes a difficult task. Kelly and Lindgren spent months training and practicing for the operation. The preparation began in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL), a 6.2-million-gallon swimming pool with a full-size replica of most of the ISS located at the bottom. Here astronauts become accustomed to working in an environment similar to the one outside the space station.

What information is unnecessary? Yes, the details about NASA’s buoyancy lab can be deleted. What are we left with? “During a spacewalk, the simplest maintenance work becomes a difficult task. Kelly and Lindgren spent months training and practicing for the operation.” Let’s combine these sentences to create a topic sentence: Even simple work can be difficult during a spacewalk, which is why it requires months of training and practice.

“Now I’d like you to finish reading the article and use your summarizing rules to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have a good summary of the article, which will help you remember important facts about spacewalks. 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

Quiz:

What is the ISS?
Why do astronauts do spacewalks?
Why might spacesuits need to be adjusted up to the time when the spacewalk begins?
How long does it take to prepare for a spacewalk?
How might astronauts train for a spacewalk?

References:

Joseph, Anne. “Let’s Get Ready to Summarize.” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/constr/josephrl.html

Murray, Bruce. “Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea.” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/AboutPointRL.html

Humenik, Zachary. “Stepping into Space.” Time for Kids. http://www.timeforkids.com/news/stepping-space/300066

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