Reading to Learn
Kiri McFarland
Story Summarization

Rationale ­ This lesson will teach students to accurately use the summarization strategy in order to comprehend text.  Children will learn to turn text into one sentence summarizations.

Materials - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Ideals Publications, Inc., 1991), chart paper, markers

1. Introduce the lesson by explaining what it means to summarize passages that we read.  "Sometimes when we read a book it is best to summarize it when we are telling our friends about it. That means that we only share the main ideas in the book, like the characters, setting, and what was the most important part of the story. We can also tell what made us enjoy or dislike the book.".
2. Divide students into three groups and have each group a section of the book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Each group will be assigned a section of the book ­ first, middle, or last. "Each group is going to read the section of the book that they are responsible for. Next, you will write down on the chart paper all the important information that you think the rest of the class would like to know about it".
3. When students have read their section of the book and written on the chart paper, have one student to be the representative of the group and share with the class what they had written down as the important information that we should all know about.
4. Once each group has shared to the class lead the class in a discussion about why they decided to write about what they did on the chart paper.  "Did each group write down the characters and where the story took place?  Did the other groups provide enough information so that you know what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story?"


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