Reading to Learn Lesson Design

Ellie Mulvaney

 

Rationale: The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. This lesson introduces students to a helpful strategy known as summarization, which will help them read to learn and understand the text. Students will learn to delete trivial information and redundant information in an article about

 

Materials

-Class set (including one for teacher) of the article “Super Snakes”

 - Blank bookmark (for each student)

 - Markers (1 pack per group of students)

 - Smart Board, or document camera with projector screen

 -Pencil and paper (for each student)

 -Poster with summarizing rules

 1. Delete unimportant or repeated information

 2. Find important information

 3. Write a topic sentence

  -Assessment chart: 

 Did the Student?                                                                                                                

Get rid of unimportant information

Get rid of repeated information?

Underline important information

Write an organized topic sentence using only the important information

 

 

1. Say: Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and 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 responses]. Yes! You only tell them important parts of the story! This is called a summary of the book or article. Summarization is a very helpful strategy good readers use to help comprehend or understand what they are reading. If you can summarize a book or article, it is a good indication that you are able to understand what you’ve read.

 

1. Say: Now I am going to pass out the article we are going to read. This article is about snakes! Snakes are sometimes known for being long and green. Do you know snakes can be all different shapes and sizes? And they have very unique ways of seeing, smelling, and hearing! Let’s read and find out some cool new facts about snakes!

 

1. Say: Before we read the article, it is important to know how to look at the vocabulary. For example, let’s look at the word venom. Venom is what animals like snakes and spiders have in their mouth when they bite the animal they are hunting or eating. It is like poison. Let’s look at how venom is used in the sentence: “The rattlesnake had poisonous venom, so it is safe to keep your distance.”

 

1. Say: Now that we’ve reviewed our vocabulary, let’s go back to talking about summarizing.  You all have bookmarks and markers on your desks.  I want you to copy down each rule as we talk about it. It will help us remember the rules of summarization!  The first rule of summarizing is “delete unimportant or repeated information.”  This means that if you see something that’s not really important for the meaning of the text or something that you’ve already marked as important, you may draw a line through it or mentally delete it.  The second rule of summarizing is to “find important information.”  This means that when you see something that you think is important to know you should underline it or maybe write down a key word or phrase.  The third rule of summarizing is to “write a topic sentence.”  Write that on your bookmark.  This part is a little trickier, and we will practice it together in a moment, but it means that once you’ve picked out the parts of the text that are important (what the paragraph is about and what the point is), you combine them to create a topic sentence.  This topic sentence captures all the important parts of a paragraph within a text.

 

1. Say: Now we are going to practice summarizing as a class.  Let’s look at the first paragraph of our article:

“More than 2,500 species of snakes slither around the world. Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on most smaller land masses; exceptions include some large islands. Most species are nonvenomous and those that have venom use it primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self-defense. Some possess venom potent enough to cause painful injury or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow prey alive or kill by constriction.”

 

Hmm… What parts of this sentence are important for understanding?  I think the part that says, “2500 species of snakes slither around the world” and “They are found on every continent except Antartica” is important so I’ll underline that, but the part that says “exceptions include large islands” is not super important, since we already have something important about where they live, so I’ll cross that out.”

 

So now that we’ve applied rules 1 and 2 of summarizing to this paragraph, I’m going to demonstrate how to use rule 3 and create a topic sentence using the parts I underlined. “There are 2500 species of snakes and the live on almost every continent! They use venom to kill their prey.”

 

1. Say: “Let’s continue to pick out important points in each paragraph of the article. Now continue reading the article by your self this time. Summarize as much as you can, highlighting important parts and marking through unimportant details. I’ll come around and check your work.”

 

1. Say: “Once you’ve read the whole article and find the main ideas and details highlighted, write down a one-paragraph brief summary on the article. At the bottom of your article, write five new words you have never seen before you read this article and write their definitions/what you think they mean based on the context within the article. Any questions?

 

Assessment:

I will review each student’s topic sentences as well as the markings on their articles.  I will use the assessment checklist for each student to know whether they followed the rules and understood how to summarize accordingly.  I will assess their summaries for the entire article and give bonus points if they are able to summarize the whole article in one sentence.

 

I will also ask these questions for a Reading Comprehension check at the end:

1. What is the main thing snakes prey on?

2. What is they main sense they use?

 

References:

 

Reading Genie

http://katiesmith2996.wixsite.com/ctrdlessondesigns/rl-design

http://darbyhayes23.wixsite.com/portfolio/reading-to-learn-design

 

“Super Snakes”

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/nature/super-snakes/