Rationale: In this lesson, we will focus on students reading to learn. Students need to be able to comprehend texts when learning to read which includes the ability to summarize. Students can use the about-point method to help summarize larger texts. The about-point method has students ask themselves two questions after reading the text: what is the text about and what is the main point the author is trying to make about the topic? The first question serves as the subject of the topic sentence which covers the general idea of what the text explains. The second question comes from analyzing the text at a deeper level by subordinating points from the passage. Readers must find an umbrella term that identifies the main points the author is writing about which will then become the predicate of the topic sentence. Students will learn how to summarize a specific text in this lesson by using the about-point method.

 

Materials:

 

1. Pencils (one for each student)

 

2. Paper

 

3. Class set copies of Knight at Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne

 

4. Summarization checklist for the teacher

 

5. Comprehension quiz (one for each student)

 

 

 

Procedures:

 

1. Say: “Does anyone know what it means to summarize something? [Let students answer and then explain.] Summarizing is when we take all of the important parts an author makes in a text, like a book or an article, and leave behind the information that is not as important. We can’t always remember everything that happened in a story or all the facts in an article, so we use summarization to help us remember everything that was important. Today, we are going to learn more about summarization by reading a text and then narrowing down the important points by writing a few sentences to help us remember the key points the author made about the topic.”

 

 

 

2. Say: “We are going to summarize our text by using the about-point method. This method has us ask ourselves two questions after reading the article: what the text is about and what is the main point the writer is trying to make? To help us answer the second question, we need to think of an umbrella term or a category to combine all the important points made in the text.”

 

 

 

3. Say: “We are going to practice the about-point strategy with a story about Jack and Annie in the Magic Tree House! In this story, Jack and Annie travel back in time to the middle ages, or medieval times; Who knows anything about Jack and Annie in the Magic Tree House books? Does anyone want to share something cool they know about this time?  What do you think will happen in this book? [Have students answer and explain for each question.] “I know that in this time there were castles and kings and queens and knights! I think this time is so interesting to learn about!  [Pass out story to each student.]

 

 

 

4. Say: “Before we read, we are going to talk about an unfamiliar word that some of us may not know from the first chapter. The unfamiliar word is medallion. A medallion is metal piece of jewelry in the shape of a medal, and is worn on clothes. Let’s see the word medallion in a sentence: “Jack picked up the gold medallion and shook off the dust, he knew it wasw worth a lot of money.”

 

 

5. Say: “Let’s read this chapter from “The Knight at Dawn”’

 

 

 

 

“We can see this chapter is about Jack and Annie and their conversation about the magic tree house and their latest adventure. What are some of the points the author made about their conversation or their last adventure in the treehouse? *allow for student answers*  After reading and recognizing the main ideas, I can combine these ideas to make a topic sentence: Jack and Annie talk about their last adventure with the dinosaurs and Annie wants to go back in time again, but Jack is scared.

 

 

6. Say: “Now it’s your turn to try the about-point method using this paragraph from the chapter!”

 

“What is this story telling us? It is describing the What points is the author making? [Have students respond.] How can we combine these points? [Have students respond.] Good!

 

 

7. Say: “Now I want you to finish reading the article and use the about-point method to make your own topic sentences for this section. When you finish, you should have summarized the whole chapter on your own! This will help you remember the important facts about the story. The point of summarizing is to condense or shorten all the main points into simple sentences so remember to just pick out the meaningful information. After everyone has finished, we will take a short quiz to see what you remember about this chapter.”

 

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Assessment: Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate their summarization abilities with the “Summarization Assessment Checklist”.

 

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Summarization Assessment Checklist:

 

 

 

__ Used important information specifically from the story

 

__ No trivial examples from the story

 

__ Significantly reduced text from the original

 

__ Contains an idea from each page of chapter

 

__ Organized summary into a paragraph

 

__ Answered both questions provided by the about-point method

 

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Comprehension Quiz:

 

Why was jack having trouble sleeping?

 

Who appears in the doorway to talk to Jack?

 

What is the thing Jack brings back from the first adventure?

 

Who wants to go back to the treehouse?

 

What is Annie doing to make Jack mad on page 4?

 

What happens to Annie when she goes in the treehouse?

 

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References:

 

Bruce Murray, The Reading Genie, http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/

 

 

 

​The Knight at Dawn Ebook

https://archive.org/details/2theknightatdawn/page/13/mode/2up

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Lee, Hannah, Surprise! Let’s Summarize!, Reading to Learn, https://hml0015.wixsite.com/mysite-2/reading-to-learn

 

 

 

Pincheon, Emma, Summarization within Reach, Reading to Learn, https://emmapincheon13.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn