Swimming into Summarization
Rationale: Once students have mastered reading fluently, they will need to learn how to summarize texts. Summarization uses an effective method called about-point. In this method there are two critical questions that are asked about the text. They are: 1.) What is the text about? 2.) What is the main point the writer is making about that topic? The first question is helping students to identify the topic, which will be the subject in the topic sentence. In the second question, students pull out the main important umbrella point from the many points the author makes. This umbrella point will become the predicate in the topic sentence.
Materials: Copy of the National Geographic Bottlenose Dolphins 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:
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Say: You all know when you read a story how excited you are to tell every single detail and event that happened? (let students nod or answer) Well, that would take way too long to try and remember all those details of a story or article. We all want to be awesome readers, which means we need to learn how to use this 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 a text that is filled with many, many words and make it small enough to get the key points as an easy way to remember.
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Say: Did you all know that there is one way to summarize that is the best one to use, it 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.
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Say: I am to show you all how to do about-point summarization with a chunk of our article on bottlenose dolphins. Some of the questions you all will be answering today are: How many of you, by a show of hands have seen a dolphin before? (let children answer, by raising their hands) Do you know the sounds they make? By using the sounds, how do they find the shape and distance of an object? What do they eat? Where do they live? An important vocabulary word you all will be reading about is the word Echolocation. Echolocation is what dolphins use to tell them the shape, size, speed, distance, and location of an object. For example, Dolphins, along with a few other animals, use echolocation to communicate. Finish this sentence: Echolocation is...
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Say: Here is a paragraph from our article (show paragraph on projector):
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These sea mammals feed on fish, squid,and shrimp. A group of dolphins will cooperate to make a mud ring to trap fish. Then, some of the dolphins in the group will wait outside the ring for the fish that try to escape, gulping them up as a snack.
This paragraph is all about dolphins’ food, but what are some of the important points the author is making?
Dolphins eat fish, squid, and shrimp. Dolphins work together to collect food. Some working in the ring to trap fish and some working on the outside to catch the ones who escape. I can put these different points together and make a topic sentence:
Dolphins work together in an inner and outer ring to trap their foods they feed on, like fish, squid, and shrimp.
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6. Say: Now I want you all to use about-point on a paragraph:
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Very social and playful mammals, bottlenose dolphins form friendships that last decades hunting, mating and protecting each other. They like to surf in the waves and wakes of boats and swim through self-made bubble rings. They can swim up to 22 miles an hour.
What’s this paragraph about? (let students answer) That’s right! This paragraph talks about friendly dolphins. What are the main points the author is making about the friendly dolphins? (let students raise their hands to answer) Awesome job boys and girls! The dolphins like to make friends that they will hunt and mate with as well as protect and they can last for many years. Another point is that they swim behind the wakes of boats and in the waves and through bubble rings they make. Our last point is that they can swim up to 22 miles an hour. That’s super-fast! How do you all think we could put those ideas together to make a topic sentence?
Dolphins are friendly animals that swim up to 22 miles an hour in the wakes of boats, waves, and bubble rings they make themselves. Great work class!
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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 the bottlenose dolphins. You all are writing a short version of this article in your own words, with the important ideas to remember. There will be a 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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What does each dolphin create after they are born?
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What is it called when dolphins use their high frequency clicks to determine the size, shape, or distance of an object?
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How many feet can dolphins grow?
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Bottlenose dolphins can swim up to _________ an hour.
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Describe where you can find dolphins.
Reference:
Olivia Bolton, Leap into Summarization
https://ojb0003.wixsite.com/mysite-2/reading-to-learn