Reading to Learn
Blue Whales: The Biggest Animal on Earth!
(But that’s just a summarization!)
Reading to Learn
Hannah Lingerfelt
Rationale:
In order to become expert readers, our ultimate goal is to comprehend the information we are reading. One strategy that helps a reader to grasp the text is summarization. Summarization is the process the reader takes to highlight all the important details and main ideas of the text to be able to construct a summary of the information. This recalling skill is important because readers are spending less time decoding. This lesson is designed to instruct students on how to summarize text (using a highlighter to mark important details) to be able to gain reading comprehension. The teacher will model brief summarization steps and guide them in deleting redundant information to find the important parts of the reading. Students will practice developing summarization as well as developing their reading comprehension skills in reading short passages while being assessed using the summarization checklist rubric.
Materials:
· Summarization Rules (decorative poster or handout)
1. Leave out unimportant information
2. Leave out repeated information
3. Choose important information
4. Create the topic sentence
· Paper
· Pencils
· Highlighters
· “Blue Whale” printed articles for each student (from National Geographic Kids)
· Summarization Checklist Rubric
· Article at front of classroom (on SMARTboard or projector)
· Comprehension questions (written on the board)
· Laminated index cards with rules
Blue Whales:
1. Where are they found?
2. What do they eat?
3. Why are they now endangered?
Beluga Whales:
1. What makes them easily identifiable?
2. What makes them unique?
3. What do they eat?
Procedures:
1. Say: “Today we are going to learn to summarize to become expert readers. Summarizing text helps us to better comprehend what we are reading. Can anyone tell me what it means to summarize when you read? (wait for student to answer) That’s right! They are able to take the most important details and main ideas, and uses that information to retell what the text was about. Do we mention every detail in the passage we read? (wait for student to answer) No, only the most important ideas! Summarizing texts helps us to comprehend, or understand, the information.”
· Review with students the Summarization Rules
1. Leave out details that are unimportant because that information does not help us understand the text to summarize.
2. Leave out details that are repeated because they have already been seen.
3. Choose important information from the text because those main ideas will help us to summarize the text to comprehend the overall message.
4. Create a topic sentence that tells us what the text is about and mentions the main ideas to introduce your summary.
2. Say: “Now, before we dive into summarizing, we are going to go over some vocabulary so that we can comprehend the text. Looking at the Blue Whale article, let’s look at the first sentence that contains the word ‘mammal’. A mammal is an animal that contains hair or fur and gives live birth to their young. This sentence tells us that Blue Whales have hair, are you surprised? (wait for student to answer) The next word we come across that we are not familiar with is ‘buoyancy’. This means the ability to float in water. So, even though these animals are the biggest animals on earth, are they buoyant? (wait for student to answer) That’s right! They are. ‘Blubber’ might be something else you are not familiar with. Blubber is fat that keeps animals warm. Lastly, we should understand the word ‘extinction’ before reading. This happens when species are no longer around.”
3. Say: “Now, we are going to read the article. (pull up article on the SmartBoard or projector and pass out an article to each student) Let’s read the article silently and discuss it together. While you are reading, I am going to pass out a laminated index card with the summarization rules. I will go over the rules of summarization briefly again before our discussion. I am going to show you how I would summarize the first half of the article by following our summarization steps, making sure to highlight important information with our highlighter and crossing out unimportant or repeated information with a pencil. First, we are supposed to leave out unimportant information. I would leave out their weight and weight gain. Also, I would leave out that they swim in small groups or alone. Second, we are supposed to leave out repeated information. The sentence that says incredible bulk just emphasizes they are the largest animal, so we could leave that out. Third, we choose important information to include our summary. Keep that they breathe air and are very comfortable in water in the ocean. The first half of the passage should look like this:
· The blue whale is the largest mammal in the world. Blue whales are able to breathe air, but they are very comfortable in the ocean waters. These mammals are found in all the world's oceans.
Then use this important information to construct one topic sentence. Ask yourself, “What is this passage about? What is the main idea?” My topic sentence would say, “Blue Whales are the earth’s largest animals, who breathe air and are found in every ocean.”
4. Say: “Now I want you to try to summarize the second half of the blue whale article. I will be walking around to help you and you can work together as well. Make sure you follow the summarization steps listed on the poster and on your index card. Use your highlighter to mark important text and use your pencil to cross out unimportant or repeated texts. Then construct one topic sentence on what the passage was about. When you finish, share your summarization process (along with reasoning to support decision) and your topic sentence with a partner. When everyone finishes, we will discuss our findings with the class.” After they are done, ask: “What did you cross out as unimportant information? (believed to swim in world’s oceans) What did you cross out as repeated information? (these giant creatures) What did you highlight as important? (they were almost hunted to extinction) What was your topic sentence? [Sample: Blue Whales eat krill and were almost hunted to extinction until 1966. Now they are endangered.) Your marked paragraph should look similar to this:
· They eat shrimplike animals called krill. They were hunted for their blubber and oil, and they were almost hunted to extinction until 1966. They are now an endangered species.
Make sure you use complete sentences and correct punctuation when you write your sentences. Now, we will discuss our summarization steps, paragraph with our topic sentence on the entire article, and answer the comprehension questions (Where are they found? What do they eat? Why are they now endangered?) After discussion, write ideas from each group on the board.
5. Say: “To finish up our lesson on summarization, I am passing out our next article titled ‘Beluga Whales’ from National Geographic Kids. This article tells different facts about Beluga Whales. I want you to read the entire article, use the steps of summarization on the poster and your index card, and construct a paragraph on the entire article using the highlighted information with a topic sentence. Use the answers to the questions of ‘What is this article about? What is the purpose of this article? If I told someone about this article, what would I say?’ Answer the comprehension questions (What makes them easily identifiable? What makes them unique? What do they eat?) and construct a topic sentence. Remember to use complete sentences and correct punctuation.
6. For assessment, collect the student’s articles with markings made, paragraph with topic sentence, and comprehension question answers. The summarization checklist rubric (table below) will be used to assess the paragraph students wrote on ‘Beluga Whales’ on the following criteria: constructing a simple topic sentence, delete unimportant information, delete repeated information, include supporting details, and constructing a summary that includes the main ideas.
· Summarization Checklist Rubric:
When summarizing, did the student… Construct a simple, topic sentence? Delete unimportant information? Delete repeated information? Include supporting details? Construct a summary that includes the main ideas?
References:
McCullough, Kassidy. Swimmerizing the Tale of a Big Whale. https://kmm0093.wixsite.com/missmacdesigns/reading-to-learn
Murray, Bruce. Making Sight Words. Linus Publications, 2012. Print.
Articles:
“Blue Whale” National Geographic Kids. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/blue-whale/#blue-whale-fluke.jpg
“Beluga Whale” National Geographic Kids. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/beluga-whale/#beluga-whale-underewater-closeup-teeth.jpg
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