Rationale: Now that students have a better understanding for how to decode text and have built up their sight vocabulary, we want to focus on reading comprehension. It is important that students understand what they are reading. A good way to tell if they have reached reading comprehension is summarization. Students should be able to answer two questions about the text they are reading: 1) What is the text about? 2) What is the main point the writer is trying to make about that topic? The first question will help the students identify the topic of the reading while the second question allows students to come up with a concise main idea based off of all points given by the author.

 

Materials:

• Copy of the Britannica Kids Dinosaur article (URL below)

• An overhead with the two paragraphs from the article

• Paper and a pencil for each individual student

• Summarization checklist and comprehension quiz for each student.

 

Procedures:

1. Say: You all know when you read about something really cool and interesting, and you want to tell someone you know all about it? Well, we know it would take way too long to try and remember every detail of a story or article. We all want to be able to share the stories we read, which means we need to learn how to use a process called, summarization. Summarization is used to remember the important details or points that the author makes about the topic. When we use summarization, we are able to take the whole entire text and figure out what the key points were so that we are easily able to remember. 

2. Say: The best strategy for figuring out your summary is called about-point. This strategy is where you ask yourself two questions, one that is pretty easy: “what is the text about?” and then you ask one that is a little harder: “what is the main point the writer is making about that topic?”. In order to answer the harder question, we have to think of an important umbrella point from the many different ideas the author is writing about.

3. Say: I am going to show you all how to do about-point summarization with a chunk of our article on dinosaurs. Some of the questions you all will be answering today are: How many of you, by a show of hands, have heard of dinosaurs before? (let children answer, by raising their hands) Does anybody know about the different types of dinosaurs? Are dinosaurs still alive today?

4. Say: An important vocabulary word you all will be reading about is the word Extinct.  When an animal is extinct it means that there are no more living animals of that species. There have been many different species that have gone extinct, and dinosaurs are just one example. Dinosaurs have gone extinct, but we know that they existed because of the fossils we have found. Would we consider cows to be extinct? (wait for students to answer) No cows are not extinct! Let's try completing this sentence: Sea turtles are considered an endangered species because they are almost _______. The answer should be extinct.

5. Say: Here is a paragraph from our article (show paragraph on projector): “The last dinosaurs became extinct, or died out, about 65.5 million years ago. Fossils of dinosaurs were first discovered in the early 1800s.” This paragraph is all about the way dinosaurs went extinct and how we know about their existence. Scientists have dug up their bones. They have also found imprints in the mud and rocks. Scientists believe that some animals today are direct descendants of dinosaurs. I can put these different points together and make a topic sentence: Dinosaurs used to live on Earth a long time ago, but they are now extinct and have left behind fossils.

6. Say: Now I want you all to use about-point on a paragraph: “Dinosaurs lived throughout the world, and their fossils have been found on every continent. They lived in all different kinds of environments as well, ranging from tropical forests to dry, sandy deserts.” What’s this paragraph about? (let students answer) That’s right! This paragraph talks about where dinosaurs lived. What are the main points the author is making about the dinosaurs? (let students raise their hands to answer) Awesome job boys and girls! That’s right, dinosaurs lived all around the world. Another point is the way the author goes into detail about fossils. Our last point is the different environments they were found in. How do you all think we could put those ideas together to make a topic sentence? Scientists have found fossils all around the world, showing that dinosaurs lived in a variety of environments. Great work class!

7. Say: You all are going to finish reading the article and using the about-point method to make your topic sentences for each paragraph. When you all have finished you will have made your first summary of an article. This will help you remember the really important facts about dinosaurs. You all are writing a short version of this article in your own words, with the important ideas to remember. There will be a short quiz when everyone finishes writing their summaries.

 

Assessment: Collect every student’s summary and use the checklist to evaluate their summarization.

In the student’s summary did they…

 ___Delete unimportant information? 

 ___Create a topic sentence? 

 ___Create 3-5 good, clear sentences? 

 ___Choose key points? 

 ___Choose the correct main idea? 

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1. When did dinosaurs live? 

2. How do we know dinosaurs existed?

3. What did the different dinosaurs eat? 

4. Why are scientists unable to explain how dinosaurs went extinct?

5. Describe the physical features of one group of dinosaurs.

 

References:

 

Article: https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/dinosaur/353055

For a similar lesson visit Surfing into Summarization by Maggio, Jordyn: https://jzm0160.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn-design

Murray, Bruce https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/reading-to-learn

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