Reading to Learn

Soaring into Summarization

Rationale:

Students need to be able to comprehend texts when learning to read. This includes the ability to summarize. Students can use the about-point method to help them summarize larger texts. The about-point method has students ask themselves two questions after reading the text:

1. What is the text about?

2. What is the main point the author is trying to make?

The first question indicates the subject of the topic sentence. The second question comes from analyzing the text at a deeper level by connecting important points from the passage. Summarization is a strategy that can be used to allow students to take the important information from a passage and remember it while not focusing on trivial information. Readers must find an umbrella term that identifies the main points of the passage. Students will learn how to summarize a specific text in this lesson by using the about-point method.

Materials:

Pencils
Paper
Copies of Bald Eagles article/text
Summarization checklist for the teacher
Comprehension quiz

Procedures:

1. Say: “Summarizing is when we take important points an author makes in a text, like a book or an article, and leave behind the information that is not as important. It can be challenging to remember everything that happens in a story or all the facts given in an article but using summarization will 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. We will write a few sentences to help us remember the key points that the author has 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 is the text about and what is the main point that the writer is trying to make? To 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 an article about emperor penguins! Does anyone want to share something cool that they know about penguins? [Have students answer and explain.] I know that emperor penguins lay eggs, are good swimmers and live in Antarctica. They also eat lots of fish. In the text we read, we are going to learn more about emperor penguins and how they live!” [Pass out article to each student]

4. Say: “Before we read, we are going to talk about an unfamiliar word that some of us may not know. The unfamiliar word is flightless. Flightless means unable to fly. For example, the word flight means the action of flying through the air. Listen to the word flightless in a sentence: Ostriches are flightless birds that must run to escape predators. Do you think penguins are flightless birds? [Call on one student to answer and explain]

5. Say: “Let’s read this paragraph from an article about emperor penguins!”

A bald eagle's white head may make it look bald. But actually the name comes from an old English word, "balde," meaning white. These graceful birds have been the national symbol of the United States since 1782.

Bald eagles were on the brink of extinction because of hunting and pollution. But laws created almost 40 years ago have helped protect them, and they've made a comeback.

Female bald eagles are a bit bigger than males. Their bodies can be three feet (one meter) long, and their wingspan can be eight feet (2.4 meters) across. That's about the distance from the floor to the ceiling!

Say: “We can see that this paragraph is about the origins of the bald eagle’s name. What are some of the points that the author made? This paragraph discusses how bald eagles are on the brink of extinction, and that female eagles are slightly bigger than males. After reading and recognizing the main ideas, I can combine these ideas to make a topic sentence: The bald eagle’s name has old English origins, and it is now on the brink of extinction.”

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

Eagle nests are called aeries (AIR-ees). Bald eagles build their nests at the very top of tall trees so the eggs will be safe. Some parents come back year after year to the same nest, adding more sticks, twigs, and grass each time.

Babies, called eaglets, are born light gray then turn brown. When they are four to five years old, they develop their normal white heads and tails. In the wild, they can live to be 35 years old or more.

Bald eagles can soar over 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) high, and their great eyesight lets them see fish up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) away. When they attack, they drop down at up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) an hour! Then they glide just above the water, snag a fish with their feet, and fly off to eat it.

“What is this paragraph telling us? Bald eagles build their nests with twigs and grass on high trees so that their eggs will be safe. The baby eagles that are born in these nests are born light grey and change colors as they get older. As they get older, they learn to fly up to 10,000 feet as well as learning how to hunt. What points is the author making? Yes, the eagles build their nests high to keep their babies safe. The babies then are able to grow up in those nests, and as they grow they change colors. When the babies are more grown up, they learn to fly and hunt. How can we combine both of these points? [Have students respond.] That’s right, the parent eagles build safe nests for their babies, and as the babies grow up, they change colors and learn how to fly and hunt.

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

Assessment:

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

Summarization Assessment Checklist:

__ Used important information specifically from the article

__ No trivial examples from the article

__ Significantly reduced text from the original article

__ Contains an idea from each section of the article

__ Organized summary into a 3-5 sentence summary

__ Answered both questions provided by the about-point method

Comprehension Quiz:

1. Why are bald eagles going extinct?

2. Do bald eagles always have a white head?

3. How high can a bald eagle soar?

4. How do bald eagles build their nests?

5. How long can a bald eagle live?

References:

National Geographic Kids, Bald Eagles

“Swimming in Summarization” by Maggie Glidewell