Miss Brown's Lesson Plans

 

 

Rationale: In this lesson children will learn how to read expository texts in order to gather information. Strengthening reading comprehension while reading text for information is the next step after learning to read text fluently. In other words, children must learn to read to learn. Having students summarize expository text allows the teacher to assess student understanding of the text. It is important for students to learn how to summarize without trivial information leaving behind only important information of the text. This lesson is designed for students to practice comprehension skills and summarization without trivial details.

 

Materials:

• Pencils

• Papers

• Highlighters

• Smartboard

• Rubric for grading summaries

• Comprehension Questions

• “Cheetah” National Geographic Kids article

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today, we will work on summarization and practice how to summarize a text on Cheetahs from National Geographic Kids. Summarizing is a wonderful tool to use after reading a text. When summarizing, you only want to state the most important information of the text and leave behind any information that is not important (trivial) or repeated information. I have picked out an interesting article that we will practice summarizing with. We will try to focus on the main idea and facts that support that idea. We will leave out unimportant information.”

2. Say: “Now, I am going to pass out a stack of papers and I would like for everyone to take one sheet. Watch me as I show the class how to fold the paper into four. First, take the paper and fold it hamburger style then fold it again hot dog style  [Do demonstration]. Your paper should be split into four sections now: [Show your own paper split up]. Okay, now it is your turn! I will be walking around if you need help.”

3. Say: Now that everyone has folded his or her paper, let’s go over why we are folding our paper like this in the first place. We’ll be using it as a study card for the steps of making a summary. You can use this whenever you need help summarizing articles. The first step in summarization is picking out the most important details and underlining or highlighting them. The second step is finding the repeated details that are unimportant and crossing them out. The third step is to make an umbrella term for example if you had dogs, cats, and fish then listing out all of those then you have pets. Now it is your turn to try if you had orange juice, diet coke, and coffee. Great! You would all just say drinks. Finally, the fourth step is organizing the information you found in step one and create a topic sentence. The main idea should be supported by the details. Now, write these steps on a page in your study card. [Ask students to recall the steps to you as you have them write the steps in their cards.] The last page of your study card will be for information that you need to remember about summarizing. For instance, summaries should always be shorter in length than the information you are summarizing.

4. Say: “Now, I am going to pass out the article. This article is about cheetahs. We will summarize the second paragraph together as a class. Have you ever wondered how a cheetah catches its prey? Those are great ideas! Do you know what cheetahs eat? Awesome answer! We are going to have to read the article to find out if these guesses are right. I am going to read through the second paragraph of our cheetah article and then we will summarize it! [Read second paragraph aloud]. Now that we’ve finished reading, let’s practice summarizing. I am going to highlight things that are important and cross out things that aren’t.

5. [Demonstration on the smartboard] Say: “We can highlight the first sentence, ‘The cheetah’s excellent eyesight helps it find prey during the day’ because it is important information we want to know about the cheetah. We can cross out the next sentence, ‘The cheetah is hard to see because its spotted coat blends with the tall, dry grass of the plains’ since it is not very important for our main idea. Next we can highlight, ‘It knocks its prey to the ground and then bites its throat’. We can cross out the fourth sentence, ‘Once found throughout Asia and Africa, cheetahs today are racing toward extinction.” Then we will highlight the last sentence, ‘Cheetahs eat small- to medium-size animals, such as hares, impalas, wildebeest calves, and gazelles.”

6. [Ask students about what they think the main idea is] Say: “That is right! The article talks all about how cheetahs catch their prey!

7. Say: “On the first page of your study card, summarize this main idea. The main idea is that cheetahs hunt for their food. A supporting detail would be cheetahs eat small to medium sized animals.”

8. Say: “Now, let’s continue to pick out the important pieces of information from the remainder of this cheetah article. I want you to go through and read each paragraph yourself. Summarize it the best you can, highlighting the important parts and crossing out anything you think isn’t important to the main idea.”

9. [Walk around the classroom] Say: “Everyone’s study cards are looking great! Once you’ve read the entire article and have written down the main ideas along with supporting details , I want you to write a very brief summary of the article. At the bottom of the article, I would like for you to write any vocabulary words that are new and unfamiliar to you that you learned from the article. Then, write a sentence for each new word you learned. For example, let’s take a look at the word, den. Den- a wild animal’s home or habitation. So if I were trying to write a sentence with that word I would say, “Bears build a den in a warm place so they have a place to sleep in the winter.” “Now you try to complete the sentence using what you know about the word Den. If I went to visit a den in the Grasslands I would find ____.” “Let’s put your knowledge to the test and try and answer these questions!” “Would you find a television in this type of den? Would I find lions sleeping in this type of den?”

 

Some possible vocabulary words:

• Prey

• Extinction

• Strength

 

Assessment: To conclude the lesson, Students will be assessed on how well they completed his or her summaries. I will use this scoring rubric to grade the summaries for correct, adequate information:

Rubric:

• Remove trivial information? YES/NO

• Write a topic sentence? YES/NO

• Write 3-5 good, concise sentences? YES/NO

• Select key information from the article? YES/NO

• Choose the correct main topic for this article? YES/NO

• List any new vocabulary words/definitions at the end? YES/NO

Comprehension Questions:

• What do cheetahs eat? (small to medium sized animals)

• How do cheetahs catch their food? (knocks prey to the ground and bites its throat)

• Do cheetahs live in the artic, dessert, or grasslands? (grasslands)

• Are cheetahs considered big cats, small cats, or medium cats? (big cats)

Reference:

Gray,Meredith. Sliding into summarizing: https://sites.google.com/site/readingwithmsmeredithgray/home/reading-to-learn

National Geographic Kids “Cheetahs”: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/cheetah/#ww-wild-cats-cheetahs.jpg