Reading to Learn

Snoozing with Summarization

Reading to Learn

By: Mallory Haynes

Rationale: Summarization is one of the two most influential strategies for comprehending text. Summarization is important for students to learn because it allows the student to understand what has been read. Teaching children to omit repeated or useless information while finding and creating a topic sentence to embody the main idea of the text helps them to remember the information read. These skills are key in improving reading comprehension. This lesson teaches students how to summarize what he or she is reading and will ultimately teach them how to find the meaning in what he or she reads.

Materials:

1. Pencil and paper for each student

2. Individual copies of article written for kids on media devices keeping kids awake from timeforkids.com (URL below)

3. Summarization checklist (below)

4. Comprehension quiz (below)

Procedures:

Explain to children why summarization is important. Say: “When we read a text, we could spend all day trying to remember all the words written and all the details. Good readers do not do this. They use strategies in summarization to remember important ideas the author is making about the topic. With summarization, a reader reduces a text with many words to a compressed gist that is easy to remember.”
Say: “When we summarize, we need to remember some important rules. First, we must delete any insignificant information. Next, we need to read the text also deleting anything that is repeated information. Then, we need to select or create a topic sentence to begin our summary.”
Say: “In a few minutes, I am going to show you how I would use these steps in summarization with a paragraph about technology and how it is keeping children awake even when not in use. This will be the article in today’s lesson you will read and produce a summary on. Do you look at a computer screen or any other device before bed? How do you think this can affect your sleeping? What are screen-free zones? These are some questions we will be learning answers to today.”
Say: “Let’s talk about an important vocabulary word we will be reading today: association. Association is a connection between ideas made mentally, or a connection you see in your mind. For example, an association is thinking of milk when you think of cookies. The association between school and teachers is another example. What are some other examples you can come up with? Finish the sentence for me: I have a negative association with…”
Say: “Here is a paragraph from the story:”

Cell phones, tablets, and computers are keeping children and teenagers awake at night—even when they’re not in use, according to new research. A study published Monday in says that media devices are causing kids to sleep less and reducing the quality of sleep that they get. This leads to trouble staying awake the next day.

This paragraph is about how technology devices are keeping children and teenagers up at night even when not using them. This leads to lack of quality of sleep and causes trouble the next day. What information is unnecessary or repeated in this Passage? I can delete the listing of devices and the sentence about the details of the research so I am left with a topic sentence: Research has shown that technological devises are keeping individuals up at night even when not in use.

Say: “Now I want you to use the summarizing rules and strategies on this paragraph:”

Many children get less sleep on school nights than they should. According to the National Sleep Foundation, kids ages 6 to 13 should be getting between nine and 11 hours of sleep per night. Getting quality sleep is particularly important for learning complex subjects like math and foreign language.

What information in this paragraph is unnecessary? That is correct, the details on how many hours of sleep children need and the details on why they need this sleep for certain subjects. How would you start the topic sentence for this paragraph? (give students time to respond) I would combine the sentences deleting unnecessary information to say: Children are getting less sleep needed to perform well in learning at school.

Say: “Now I’d like you all to finish reading the article starting from the beginning and using our summarizing rules to create a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished you will have a good summary of the article containing important information on technology and its effect on sleeping. Remember to delete repeated and trivia information this is used solely to help you understand the main ideas of the text. You are creating a shorter version of the article in your own words to help you remember the main points made by the author. To make sure you remember, we will have a quiz after everyone completes his or her summary of the article.”

Assessment: Collect all student’s summary of the article. While the students take the quiz (below) teacher will evaluate the students’ summaries with the checklist below:

Summarization Checklist:

___ Collected important information

___ Ignored trivia and examples in summary

___ Significantly reduced the text from the original

___ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

___ Sentences organized coherently into essay form

Quiz:

What is a factor causing children to stay awake at night?
What can a computer screen do to the mind and emotions?
What is one factor that leads to poor sleeping cause by devices?
What is a screen-free zone?
What is one relaxing activity the article says to avoid using devices at bedtime?

References:

Murray, Bruce. “Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea.” http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/AboutPointRL.html

Grisham, Carly. “Sailing Through Summarization.” http://carlymgrisham.wixsite.com/mscarlyreading/reading-to-learn

Samuelson, Kate. “Up All Night.” Time for Kids. http://www.timeforkids.com/news/all-night/492021

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