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Reading to Learn: Summarizing on the Farm
By: Madison Wilhite
Rationale: The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. This lesson introduces students to understand a helpful strategy known as summarization, which will help them read to learn and understand the text. The goal of this lesson is to teach students how to pick out important information, summarize the text, and then demonstrate their understanding. They will achieve this goal by reading a short article about farming, identifying important information, deleting the trivial information, and then writing a summary. They will also find an umbrella term for the events that happen in the text.
Materials: Class set of the article "On the Farm" by Time for Kids; poster with the rules of summarization written on it (included below); assessment chart for each student (for teacher use); colored marker for each student; lined paper for each student; projector
Procedures:
1. Say: Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and later told a friend about the reading? Do you read them the whole book, or do you just tell them the important parts of what you read? (Wait for students to answer) Depending on answers: Exactly, you only tell them important parts of the story! This is called a summary of the book or article. Good readers use summarization to help comprehend or understand what they are reading. If you can summarize a book or article, it is a good way to know that you are able to understand what you’ve read.
2. Say: Okay, now let's look at our helpful tips for summarizing. Everybody take out a marker and a sheet of paper and write down the tips I am putting on the board. [write tips on board and say them aloud as you write them].
Tip 1: Read the text carefully.
Tip 2: Find the main idea.
Tip 3: Use a pencil or highlighter to mark any important points/details
Tip 4: Cross out any details that are not important or relevant
Tip 5: Organize your important points/details into sentences.
3. Say: Before we practice summarization, can someone tell me anything they know about farming? [Wait for responses]. Yes, they have animals on them!! What else? [Wait for responses] Yes, they also grow fruits and vegetables. Who can tell me what these fruits and vegetables start out as? [Wait for responses]. Very good, seeds. These seeds need water and sunlight to help them grow. Do you think you need water to survive? Yes, that’s right, you do! All people have to have water to live!!
4. Say: “Can anybody tell me anything they know about farming?” Give students a few minutes to share any information that they know. “Great! Today we are going to learn even more and read an article about farming. Food is grown and raised on farms from seeds and many different types of animals. Kids who live on farms often have to help with chores. Has anyone ever visited a farm before?” Allow students time to answer if they had ever visited a farm and let the students share what it was like. Pass out article On the Farmto students. Say: “This article talks about what happens on a farm, what animals live there, how they grow fruits and vegetables, etc. Now, we are going to read this article together as group. We will highlight and/or underline anything that we think is important as we go along. We will also cross out any details that are not super important. Then, we will organize what we have highlighted/underlined into sentences to create our summary.”
5. The teacher reads the article out loud to the class, while having them follow along. Stop after every paragraph to mark any important details by highlighting/underlining. Cross out any information that does not seem necessary. Go over any vocabulary words that they do not know (ex: “Does anybody know what the word harvest means?" Give students time to think of definition. "Harvest is the process or period of gathering in crops. I am going to use harvest in a sentence- We had enormous harvestsof corn this year. Would somebody else like to try to use harvest in a sentence?” Allow students time to think, and then take 1 or 2 volunteers to share their sentences.) Let's look at the first two paragraphs. What is an important word, or main idea, in the first paragraph? The first paragraph talks about what food is grown or raised on a farm. That is our main idea. So all of our important information will be about where the food they produce comes from. What are two types of farms that the article mentions? Yes, it says there are dairy and poultry farms. Does it matter what types of chores kids do on farms? No, this does not have anything to do with how the farms are growing or raising food, so this is trivial information, so we can cross it out. What does the next paragraph talk about? What is the key umbrella term, or main idea? Yes, the main idea is the food that is produced. So, everything important in this paragraph will be about the different kinds of food. Let’s highlight important information. Where does milk come from? Yes, it comes from cows, this is important, and it has to do with the milk being produced, so we will highlight this. What do poultry farms raise chickens for? They raise them for meat and eggs. They also grow fruits and vegetables that come from seeds planted in the ground. This is all important information that has to do with the main idea of the paragraph- food. Therefore, we will highlight this information, and cross out the information that is not as important." Below is an example of the highlighted text for the first two paragraphs.
Many farms grow crops. These fruits and vegetables start as seeds. Farmers plant seeds. The seeds need water and sunlight to grow.
Dairy farms raise cows for milk. Poultry farms raise chickens for meat and eggs.
6. Discuss the rest of article with the students, going over main ideas. “What is the main topic of this article? Right, it’s about farming. I would like for you all to write 4 or 5 sentences that summarizes the article. The main idea of the article should be your topic sentence (ex. Farms are places where food is grown or raised).” Give students time to write down their summaries on a piece of paper. “Let’s go over some of the things you wrote.” Call on students to read off one of their sentences. Write their sentences on the board. This way, you are creating a summary with the class. “Good job class! We just wrote a summary!” Below is an example summary.
“Farms raise and grow food for us to eat. They grow fruits and vegetables, and then they harvest them when they are done growing. They also have animals such as cows and chickens. Farmers use these animals for milk, meat, and eggs.”
7. Say: “Now I am going to let you write a summary on your own. I will give you another article to read.” Hand out article Caracal. “This article is about animals called caracal. This article describes what caracals do, where they live, what they look like, etc. Has anybody ever seen a caracal? Can you share with the class what they were like?" Allow students time to share with the class. Say: "Some people say that they wish they were caracals so they could be very fast. Remember to highlight any main points and cross out anything that is not important that may become distracting. After you read the article, write 4 or 5 sentences to summarize.” Walk around to monitor students and help any that may need your assistance. Take up their summaries and articles when they are done. This is their assessment.
Assessment:
When Summarizing, did the Student…
Underline/highlight important information yes/no
Cross out unimportant information yes/no
Find main idea or topic yes/no
Write a summary (4 to 5 sentences) yes/no
Resources:
Farming article: “On the Farm” Time for Kids. 2019.
https://www.timeforkids.com/k1/on-farm/
Caracal article: “Caracal” National Geographic Kids.2017. https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/caracal/#caracal-kittens.jpg
John David Phillips, The Panda Can Summarize:
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