Summarization with Sloths
By Caroline Kester
Rationale: Reading comprehension is the overall goal of reading and an important part of reading comprehension is getting the overall message of a passage. This lesson will teach students to comprehend text by introducing the summarization strategy. Students will discard unnecessary and redundant information, summarize multiple items and events under umbrella terms, and write a topic sentence that covers the information. Taking these steps, students will attain comprehension through the summarization strategy.
Materials: Poster with summarization steps (written and pictured), poster with the passage, two sheets of notebook paper for each student, pencil for each student, highlighter for each student, sharpie for each student, copies of the National Geographic article on sloths: summarization checklist (one per student; see below), comprehension quiz (one for each student; see below).
Procedures:
1. Say: “When we read a text, we could spend all day trying to remember all the words and details of that text. Good readers do not try to remember every little detail that they read. Instead, they use summarization strategies to remember only the important points the author is making about the topic. Today we are going to learn and practice three steps that will help us remember the important information we need to understand the text.”
2. Display the poster with three summarization steps and review. Say “When we summarize we are going to do three things:
1st: Cross out any unimportant or repeated information (fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text.
2nd: Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text and write any umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected.
3rd: Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted”
3. Say: “In a few minutes I’m going to show you how I’d do these steps of summary with an article on sloths which is what you are going to be reading also. Book talk: How much do you know about sloths? Did you know that algae can actually grow on their fur? We will learn more about sloths as we read this passage.
4. Say: “Another important strategy in reading comprehension is learning what words mean. To do this, we are going to go over a few words we will find in this article before we read it [for each word: explain the word in simple language, model how to use the word (What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean?), provide sample questions using the word and scaffold by making a sentence using the word for students to complete].
WORDS: species, shaggy, predators, sluggish
Example: [predator] Say: “One of the words in our passage is predator. Let’s look and become familiar with what this word means.
1. A predator is an animal that tries to hunt and kill a different type of animal.
2. Rabbits have to be careful to avoid predators like hawks.
3. Is a predator something that animals should be afraid of?
4. Which of these is an example of a predator: two squirrels helping each other bury nuts or a lion that is chasing a gazelle.
5. Small animals hide from predators because (they do not want to get eaten.)
5. Hang the poster with the passage next to the poster with the Summarization rules. Give each student a pencil, highlighter, two sheets of notebook paper and a copy of the article.
Say: “here is a paragraph from our article. I am going to show you how I summarize this paragraph and you can follow along and do it with me on your paper. First, let’s review our summarization steps.
1st Cross our any unimportant or repeated information (fluff) that isn’t essential to the message of the text
2nd Find and highlight the important information that is essential to the text and write any umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected
3rd Form a topic sentence from the important information you highlighted
First, I need to cross out any unimportant or repeated information. I can cross out the first two sentences because it isn’t important to the main idea of the paragraph. Next, I need to highlight the important information and write my umbrella terms on paper for any items and ideas that are connected. I think that sentence 1 and 2 are important to the paragraph so I am going to highlight both sentences.
“It's a good thing sloths don't have to go to school. They'd never make it on time. These drowsy tree-dwellers sleep up to 20 hours a day! And even when they are awake, they barely move at all. In fact, they're so incredibly sluggish, algae actually grows on their fur.”
I think sloths, sleep, and sluggish are my umbrella terms that give the main idea.
Lastly, I am going to form a topic sentence from my highlighted information. By looking at my highlighted information I can come up with this as my topic sentence [write topic sentence below the paragraph on poster so students can see]: Sloths sleep so much that they barely spend any time grooming themselves.”
6. Say: “Now I want you to use the summarization rules we discussed in a paragraph.”
“Sloths live in the tropical forests of Central and South America. With their long arms and shaggy fur, they resemble monkeys, but they are actually related to armadillos and anteaters. They can be 2 to 2.5 feet (0.6 to 0.8 meters) long and, depending on species, weigh from 8 to 17 pounds (3.6 to 7.7 kilograms).”
Say: “What unimportant information can we cross out? Yes, we can cross out the first part of the second sentence. Now, what are we left with? Right, we are left with all but the last part of the second sentence. Don’t forget to write three or four umbrella terms that give the main idea. Let’s read these two sentences and try to combine them into one sentence to create a topic sentence. We can combine them and make this topic sentence: ‘Sloths live hot climates and they are related to armadillos.’
7. [Pass out 2 pieces of paper to each student for them to write their topic sentences on] Say: Now I want you to finish reading the article on your own and use your summarizing rules to make a topic sentence for each paragraph. When you are finished, you will have a good summary of the article, which will help you to remember important facts about the green sea turtle. We will have a short quiz after everyone finishes their topic sentences.”
Assessment:
Collect each student’s summary of the article and evaluate the summarization using the following checklist:
___________ Collected important information
___________ Ignored trivia and examples in summary
___________ Significantly reduce the text from the original
___________ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph
___________ Sentences organized coherently into essay form
Quiz:
1. Name one of the two places with that sloths live. [Central or South America]
2. What two animals are sloths related to? [Armadillos and anteaters]
3. How much can sloths weigh? [Up to 17 pounds]
4. How long can sloths sleep? [Up to 20 hours a day]
References:
Adapted from: Turtle-lly Awesome Summarization by Caroline Colley, https://mcc0052.wixsite.com/mysite/reading-to-learn
For another lesson see Swimming Into Summarization by Dawson Williams, https://dawsonannewilliams.wixsite.com/lessondesign/reading-to-learn
Sloths Passage from National Geographic Kids: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/sloth/ - sloth-beach-upside-down.jpg