Reading with Ms. Ray

Rationale:

In this lesson, the students will learn how to gather information by reading expository texts. After children learn to read fluently, the best thing to do next would be to strengthen reading comprehension through reading informational text. Summarization allows the teacher to assess student understanding of what they are reading. It is important for students to learn how to summarize and gather the correct information from the text. This lesson plan is designed for students to practice their summarization and comprehension skills without getting bogged down by detail.

 

Materials:

Pencils, paper, highlighter, comprehension questions, “Snowy Owls” National Geographic Kids article, smartboard

 

Procedures:

1. Say: Today, we will work on summarization and practice how we will gain information from an article on snowy owls from National Geographic Kids. Summarizing is a great tool to use after reading to gain information. When summarizing, you want to go on a treasure hunt, and only get the important information from reading, and leave behind the information that is not important. I have picked out a fun article that we will practice summarizing with. We will try to focus on just the main idea and the important facts that support that idea.

2. Say: I am going to give out paper, and I want everyone to take one piece. I will show you all how to fold the paper, so watch carefully. First, we are going to fold the paper hamburger style and then hot dog style {do demonstration}. Now it is your turn! Your paper should be divided into four little boxes. I will walk around the room if anyone needs any help.

3. Say: Now that everyone has their paper folded, you may be wondering what we are going to use it for. This will be our study card to help guide us in the summarization of our story we are reading today. You can use this idea whenever you summarize articles. The first step in summarization is picking out what is important in the story and highlighting it. The next step is finding the unimportant details or repeated details and crossing them out. The third step is coming up with something called an umbrella term, which gives a general way of labeling similar things. For example, if you were reading a story that talked about pigs, cows, horses, and sheep these could all be labeled as animals, or more specifically, farm animals. Finally, the last step is taking the information you got in step one and making a topic sentence that wraps up what you need to know. Now, I want you to write these steps down at the top of the corresponding boxes on your study card. {Ask students to recall steps and write them pretty small at the top of each corresponding box. Ex) box one will have “highlight important details” at the top. They can shorten the steps to make them fit at the top}. Box one will be for important details. Box two will be empty, except for the directions, because it is for unimportant details. Box three will be where you come up with an umbrella term and vocabulary. Box four will be where you make one topic sentence for the whole article. On the back, I want you to write a 3-5 sentence paragraph summarizing the article as a whole.

4. Say: I am going to hand out the article, which is a super fun article about snowy owls. We are going to all work together as a class to summarize the first paragraph. Have you ever asked yourself, gee I wish I knew where snowy owls lived? What do they eat? Does anyone have any guesses? Good guess! We will have to read the article to find out! So, I am going to read the first paragraph aloud and we are going to pick out what is important together {Read first paragraph aloud}. Now that we are finished reading, let’s highlight what is important and cross out what is not.

5. {Demonstrate on the smartboard} Say: The paragraph starts off with “When you see a snowy owl, it’s clear how the bird probably got its name: they’re snowy-white”. We could cross out the idea “it’s clear how the bird probably got its name” because this is not important. We can highlight “snow-white” because we need to know that this type of owl is white. The paragraph goes on to talk about the difference in color between males and females. All you need to know from this is that males are whiter than females. Everything else can be crossed out because it it pretty much just a repeat.

6. {Ask students about what they think the main point is of this paragraph is} Say: That’s right! The paragraph talks about the color of snowy owls.

7. Say: Now I want you to go through the rest of the article, paragraph by paragraph. Remember to highlight the important stuff and cross out the stuff that isn’t important. Write the main points in the first box of your study card.

8. Say: Everyone’s study cards are looking really good! Once you have found the important details and crossed the the un-important details, the umbrella term for this article could be as simple as snowy owls. Some important vocabulary words from the article are: lemmings, tundra, keen. These words should be written in box 3 along with any others you find important in a sentence. For example, let’s try Arctic. Arctic- the northern most part of the world that is very cold. “The Arctic is the coldest place in the world”. Now you try to finish a sentence using what you know about the Arctic. “If I visited the Arctic, I would want to wear _______.” Let’s put your knowledge to the test with more questions. “Would I take a swimsuit to the Arctic?” What about my winter boots?”

 

Assessment:

To wrap up this lesson, students will be assessed on their summaries of the article. I will use this rubric to assess if they gained the proper information from this lesson:

 

Rubric

On the study card and summary, did the student…

• Provide important facts? YES/NO

• Remove trivial information? YES/NO

• Provide vocabulary and correct sentences? YES/NO

• Write a 3-5 sentence, good summary? YES/NO

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I will call each student up individually to answer some comprehension questions. Students can free read while they are waiting for me to call them up.

1. What do snowy owls mainly eat? (lemmings- small rodents)

2. What sense do owls rely on the MOST to catch their prey? (hearing)

3. When are snowy owls most active (day- especially in summer)

4. Who sits on the eggs? (female)

5. How long do baby owls stay in the nest? (less than a month)

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References:

Adapted from Gray, Meredith. "Sliding into Summarizing" https://sites.google.com/site/readingwithmsmeredithgray/home/reading-to-learn

National Geographic Article- "Snowy Owls"

For more lessons:  Horizons Website on Reading Genie