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Reading to Learn

By: Mallory Kelley

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Soaking Up Summarization

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Rationale:

Summarization is one of the most powerful tools for comprehending a text. A useful and effective device to summarizing is called about-point. About-point uses the text to ask two important questions: What is the text about? What is the main point the writer is making about the topic? The first question is normally the easiest. It identifies the focus that will become the subject of the topic sentence. The second question is the hardest because the author usually makes several points throughout the text; therefore, readers must prioritize the points, i.e., find an overarching term that will cover all the main points the author is making. This main point will become the predicate of the topic sentence.

 

Materials:

  • Individual copies of an article written for kids called, Do You Know How to Be Street Smart from KidsHealth.org (see URL below)

  • Pencils for each student

  • Paper for each student

  • Summarization Assessment Checklist (see below)

  • Comprehension Quiz (see below)

 

Procedures:

1) Explain to children why summarization is important: It would take hours for us to read a text and remember every word and every detail that we read about. However, good readers do not try to remember everything they read. Instead, they use summarization methods that help them key in on the important points the author is making about a topic. Doing this process helps reduce the great amount of information that is in a text to just one dense meaning that is much easier to remember.

 

2) The best way to summarize is called about-point. In about-point, we ask ourselves one easy question and one difficult question, and we use these answers from our questions to make our topic sentence. The easy question is, “What is the text about?” The difficult question is, “What is the main point the writer is making about that topic?” To answer this harder question, you will need to think of an overarching term that will cover all the important points the writer is telling you throughout the text.

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3) In a few minutes, I am going to model how I would do an about-point with a paragraph on street safety, which is the topic of the article you are going to be reading about today. Do you know how to be street smart? What do we do if we see a stranger in the street? Do you have safety rules to follow in the streets? How can we prevent ourselves from getting injured through the dangers of streets? These are some of the questions that you will be learning to answer today.

 

4) Before we begin, let’s discuss an important vocabulary word you’ll be reading: whereabouts. Whereabouts is a place where you or someone else are at. We use the term whereabouts frequently in our conversations with others. For example, “Tell me your whereabouts and we will head your direction.” Now that we know location of the person we are speaking with, we can navigate ourselves to their direction. What are your whereabouts right now? Finish this sentence: “The whereabouts of our classroom is…”

 

5) Here is a paragraph from the article:

 

“If a stranger approaches you and asks you for help – such as with giving directions, finding lost money, or searching for a runaway dog – don’t help. Don’t even give an answer. Right away, you should walk the other way. If you’re not near a safe spot, try any store or restaurant. If you feel you’re in danger, yell for help.”

 

This paragraph is about strangers, but what are the important points the author is making? Stranger’s will: try to manipulate you into different ways of approaching them. This is not safe at all; therefore, we should immediately get away. Putting these points together, I can make a topic sentence: “Approaching a stranger is never safe so we should always keep our distance from them and yell for help if we need it.”

 

6) Now I want you to use about-point on a paragraph:


“What are safe spots? Safe spots are places where you can stop if you need help, like the houses of kids you know, your parents’ friends’ houses, stores, restaurants, police stations, libraries, and fire departments. When you’re walking or riding your bike, make a mental note of the safe spots along your route. That way, you’ll know where they are in case you ever need one.”

 

What is this paragraph about? Yes, safe spots. What are the main points the author is making about safe spots? Correct, we need to know where safe spots are on our typical routes, so we are aware of them if we ever need to use them. Yes, another point is that we can always stop at safe spots if we ever need help to get away from danger. How could we combine those ideas into one sentence beginning: Safe spots …? “Safe spots are places we need to be aware of to go for help in an emergency.”

 

7) Now I would like for you to finish reading the article and use about-point to create a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have this great summary of the article that will help you remember all the important facts about street safety. Make sure you do not summarize examples or details; they are incorporated only to help you understand the main ideas. You are writing a short version of the article in your own words that will only include the important ideas you need to remember. To double-check your memory, we will have a quiz after everyone finishes writing.

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Summarization Assessment Checklist: Gather all the students’ summaries of the article and evaluate their summaries using the following checklist:

            _____ Student collected important information for their main point.

            _____ Student ignored examples and minute details throughout the summary.

            _____ Students meaningfully reduced the text from the original article.

            _____ Students created sentences that incorporated ideas together from each paragraph.  

            _____ Students created sentences that were organized logically into essay form.

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Comprehension Quiz:

1. If someone asks you to help find their missing cat but you do not know them, do you help them do it?

2. Can we tell which strangers are dangerous and which strangers are safe?

3. What is a whereabout?

4. Who are three people that would need to know your whereabouts before you leave the house?

5. Is it best to travel by yourself or with a buddy when you go places?

6. Is it smart to go play in a dark, isolated street just because it is fun?

7. When is a time that we can get in the car with a stranger?

8. A stranger came up to me and offered me a Gatorade. I really love Gatorade. Should I take this Gatorade and drink it?

9. What is something we could do with our voices if we feel in danger from a stranger?

10. If you feel like you are not in a good situation and not safe, should you do something about it? Should you tell an adult, call 911, or should you think that it is silly to come up with such a thing? 

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References:

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