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READING TO LEARN LESSON

This lesson is intended for teaching comprehension to readers. The lesson will instruct students how to summarize.

Reading to Learn: Intro

Summarizing Is Like Connecting the Dots


Rational: 

In order to be a proficient reader, comprehension is an important skill. Summarization is a process that helps readers comprehend the text they are reading. Summarization is the process the reader takes to understand the main idea and details of the text, they take all the important information and blend it together to make a summary. This lesson is intended to teach students how to summarize the texts they read. The teacher will demonstrate how to key into important details in the text so they can later refer back to them to comprehend the texts. The teacher will model the steps in the summarization process, including removing unimportant and redundant information the students gained from the text. In this lesson, students will practice their summarization skills and enhance their reading comprehension by reading a selected passage.


Materials: 

Student copies of the Kids Discover article What Causes Fabulous Freckles, pencils and paper for every student, summarization checklist, comprehension, quiz, and a white board with dry erase markers.  


Procedures:

1.     Say: “Students, today we are going to learn how to summarize texts. Sometimes we read a really good book and want to tell our friends all about it? Well we can’t tell them every word in the book, that would take too long. Instead, we can summarize and tell them only the important information. Summarization also helps us remember what we read, especially the important information.”

2.     Say: “We can use a strategy called About Point when we want to summarize a text. When using About Point, we keep two questions in mind when we read the text.” Write these questions on the board. “What is the text about?” and “What is the writer is trying to say about the point?”. Then say, “These two questions will help us write a topic sentence, and they should be easy to answer since all the answers are in the text.”

3.     Say: “We are going to read an article called What Causes Fabulous Freckles. As you read this article, keep the questions on the board in mind. Raise your hand if you have freckles.” Wait for student response. “Well if you do, if you don’t and are wondering why, we are going to learn about them in this article. First off, does anyone know what the word Melanin is? According to this article, melanin, ‘absorbs and reflects the sun’s ultraviolet light, helping to protect skin from sun damage.’ Melanin is in our skin, and we all have different amounts of it. It helps you not get sunburnt or have other skin damage.”

4.     Say: “Now that we understand the word Melian, we can read the article to understand how freckles are formed. Everyone read the first paragraph.” Wait for students. Say, “I am going to show you how I summarize the first paragraph. I can understand that it talks about the basic understanding of freckles and how they differentiate between people. The author gives us this basic information to give us insight for the rest of the article. Now, after I ask myself the two questions, I can make a topic sentence for this paragraph. Let’s see, what is this article about? Now what is the point? Alright, so a topic sentence could be, “Freckles are caused by melanin in your skin, which is different for every individual.”

5.     Say: “Now it’s your turn to try about – point. Read the next paragraph in this article. What is this paragraph about? Right, how freckles are genetic in families, and how they differentiate between people. To make a topic sentence for this paragraph we would combine these two points. This topic sentence would be, “Freckles are genetic but can differentiate between people.”

6.     Say: “Now I want you all to finish the article and write a topic sentence for each paragraph using about point. This method helps us have a summary of the whole article and will help us remember the important details in the article. Remember when you are completing this activity to answer both questions we talked about at the beginning of class. Remember when completing this activity to only pick out the most important parts during each paragraph, and to summarize these sentences in your own words. Turn these into me when you are done.”

7.     Grade the students summaries using the student summary checklist, then distribute and grade the comprehension quiz as well.  



Student Summary Checklist



Student Name:



Wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph 


Y/N

Deleted unimportant or repetitive information


Y/N

Reduced the texts from original to summary


Y/N

Acknowledged important points in the article


Y/N

Successfully combined important points for form a topic sentence

Y/N



Comprehension quiz:                                                           Student Name:

1)    How does Melanin protect the skin from sun damage? 

a)     Melanin absorbs and reflects the sun’s ultraviolet rays

2)    Why do fairer skinned people get freckles easier? 

a)     They have less melanin in their skin

3)    What are some ways freckles can be removed from your skin? 

a)     Freezing the skin, laser zapping, chemical peels, and more

4)    Should you see the doctor if you have unusual looking spots on your skin?  

a)     Yes

5)    What’s another name for liver spots? 

a)     Age spots 



References:

“What Causes Fabulous Freckles” by Kids Discover  https://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/what-causes-fabulous-freckles/

“Fabulous Findings to Summarization” By Anna Reid Dove https://annareiddove.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn

Reading to Learn: Text
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