Summarize
Teaching students to summarize what they have read has also been shown to lead to increased comprehension (Brown, 2002). According to the website Reading Rockets, "Summarizing teaches students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarize improves their memory for what is read."
According to page 74 of Dr. Mimi Miller and Nancy Veatch in their 2011 book entitled Literacy in Context (LinC): Choosing Instructional Strategies to Teach Reading in Content Areas for Students Grades 5-12, " When summarizing, students discern the difference between more and less important ideas in the text. They generalize and attempt to state the main idea, usually in writing." There are a large number strategies for teachers to employ in helping students summarize text. As with all instructional strategies, some approaches to summarizing are more effective than others. |
This video walks you through the steps to summarize text.
This lesson has students summarizing a short fictional story.
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Examples
oral SummariesAccording to page 77 of Dr. Mimi Miller and Nancy Veatch in their 2011 book entitled Literacy in Context (LinC): Choosing Instructional Strategies to Teach Reading in Content Areas for Students Grades 5-12, " With an Oral Summary, students learn how to verbally summarize sections of text."
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Visual SummariesThe purpose of the Visual Summary is to create a visual picture, storyboard, diagram, that summarizes what has been learned from the reading of the text. The use of visual images to summarize requires a different way of thinking about literacy (Flood, Lapp, & Bayles-Martin, 2000).
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Resources
Brown, R. (2002). Straddling two worlds: Self-directed comprehension instruction for middle schoolers. In C. C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 337–350). New York: Guilford.
Ffoxworth. (2010). Summarizing. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_ZUf3r9zg
Flood, J., Lapp, D., & Bayles-Martin, D. (2000). The role of visual media in literacy education. In M. A. Gallego & S. Hollingsworth (Eds.), What counts as literacy: Challenging the school standard (pp. 62–84). New York: Teacher’s College Press.
Miller, M., & Veatch, N. (2011). Literacy in context (LinC): Choosing instructional strategies to teach reading in content areas for students grades 5-12. Boston: Pearson.
Reading Rockets. (2015). Summarizing. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/summarizing
Surrendering Carrie. (2013). Summarizing mini lesson. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sfFa5MBWGk
Brown, R. (2002). Straddling two worlds: Self-directed comprehension instruction for middle schoolers. In C. C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 337–350). New York: Guilford.
Ffoxworth. (2010). Summarizing. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_ZUf3r9zg
Flood, J., Lapp, D., & Bayles-Martin, D. (2000). The role of visual media in literacy education. In M. A. Gallego & S. Hollingsworth (Eds.), What counts as literacy: Challenging the school standard (pp. 62–84). New York: Teacher’s College Press.
Miller, M., & Veatch, N. (2011). Literacy in context (LinC): Choosing instructional strategies to teach reading in content areas for students grades 5-12. Boston: Pearson.
Reading Rockets. (2015). Summarizing. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/summarizing
Surrendering Carrie. (2013). Summarizing mini lesson. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sfFa5MBWGk