Reading to Learn

Surfing Into Summarization

Reading to Learn Design

Rationale:

Once students become fluent readers and can understand the meaning of a text and enjoy the story, summarization is the next goal. Summarization also helps readers understand texts/stories. A great method that helps readers with summarization is “about-point”. This method asks two questions: 1. What is the text about? and 2. What is the main point the writer is making about the topic? This encourages readers to “superordinate” the points which means to distinguish the main points from all other points the author/writer makes. The main point/topic will be discovered as an “umbrella term” which covers the main point readers are looking for. The subject (or predicate) of the topic sentence will be based on the umbrella term (main point). This activity will help readers reach the goal of summarization through using the about-point method, recognizing the umbrella term, thus, allowing them to summarize.

Materials:

Copy of surfing article for each student, white board, smart board, dry erase markers, paper, pencil, summarization checklist, comprehension quiz

Procedures:

Say: “Alright, everyone today we are going to work on a new reading strategy. Last time we worked on being fluent readers, and today we are going to learn how to summarize. Summarization means to give a shortened version of a story, or to summarize the main points. This helps us to not include every little detail that may not be important in the story. Summarization is used to tell the main points of a story and only the important details. Expert readers use summarization all the time even in their day-to-day life. I know we all want to become expert readers right? (let them answer). Right! So, that’s why we are going to learn how to summarize!”
Say: “To learn how to summarize we are going to use a method called “About-Point”. This method helps us to summarize by asking two questions: What is the story about? And what is the main point the author is trying to make? (write these two questions on the board so students will be able to remember them and look back on them if needed). After we answer these two questions we can come to the conclusion about what the main topic of the story is.”
Say: “We are going to read an article about surfing and use the About-Point method to determine what the main ideas of the article are. Who likes surfing? Has anyone ever been surfing? (let them answer). Surfing is a fun sport people do in the ocean or at the beach and takes a lot of skill to do. I would like to learn how to surf one day. To start, we are going to review two vocabulary words from the article to help us. The first word is wetsuit (write word on board). What do you think a wetsuit is? Answer this question on your paper. The next word is technique. Surfers have to have a certain technique to get up on their boards. On your paper write down what kind of techniques you think they have to use to be successful in surfing.”
Say: “Now that we know some of the key terms from our article let’s take a look at it. We are going to read a section from the article and see if we can figure out what the main points are. This will help us summarize. ‘A surfer must have good balance and coordination, an accurate sense of timing, and good swimming skills. A surfer starts by paddling the surfboard out to the area where the waves are forming. When a wave begins to surge, the surfer paddles toward shore to get up speed. As the movement of the wave begins to push the surfboard toward shore, the surfer rises into a sitting or kneeling position on the board. He or she moves the board onto the curl of the wave just ahead of the crest. Standing, kneeling, or sitting on the board, the surfer rides it down the wall of water toward the shore.’ First, let’s use the About-Point method to answer what this paragraph was about? (allow time for them to answer). The technique, good! What do we think the main point is that the author was trying to make here? That surfers need lots of skill and coordination to be able to surf and have to be in a certain position to be successful. Good. Now we can put these two ideas together to form a topic sentence for the paragraph.”
Say: “Now let’s look at a section to summarize. Here it is: ‘Surfing began in the islands of Hawaii and other areas of the Pacific Ocean more than 200 years ago. Soon the sport spread to the United States, especially California, and to Australia and beyond. The first surfboards were made of wood and were very large and heavy. Few people could carry them. During the 1900s scientists developed new materials that made it possible to build much lighter boards.’ What was this paragraph about? (let them answer). Yes, surfing originated in Hawaii where surfboards used to be really heavy and made out of wood. When it became popular in the United States scientists discovered new materials to use to make them lighter and easier to use. Good job. Let’s combine these points to make a topic sentence! We can say: ‘Surfing originated in Hawaii where they had big heavy wooden boards. When it became a popular sport in the United States scientists started making surfboards lighter and easier to use.’ Now, we have just summarized the paragraph and formed a topic sentence using the main points.”
Say: “Now that we’ve practiced I want you to try on your own. Read the whole article, some of it you will already know as we have read parts of it already, and then use About-Point to come up with a topic sentence like we just practiced. Once you finish writing the answers to the About-Point questions and have your topic sentences, take them and make them into a paragraph summarizing what you read. Summarize in your own words, and only use the most important details to tell the story. The About-Point questions are written on the board if you need help remembering them. When you are finished turn your written summaries in to me.”
As the students are turning in their work I will see if they practiced using About-Point to summarize the article in their own words. I will use my assessment checklist to see if they learned how to summarize and reached our goals for this lesson. After everyone is done I will put up questions on the board for them to answer. This will be the comprehension quiz which will help me determine if they understood the article and how to summarize it.

Assessment Checklist:

Student’s name:

Did the student use the About-Point method to determine the main topic and points?
Did the student write a topic sentence using main ideas from the text?
Did the student summarize only the important details in their own words?

Comprehension Quiz:

Where did surfing originate?
Who judges surfing competitions?
What skills must surfers have to be successful?
What technique/positions do they use when surfing and riding the waves?
What equipment do surfers need?
What is a wetsuit?
What is the board surfers use called?

References:

Article:

Surfing- Britannica Kids

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/surfing/439473

Murray, Bruce. Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea

https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/reading-to-learn

Boyd, Logan. Hopping Into Summarization

https://lolomakayla99.wixsite.com/mysite/hopping-into-summarizing

Reading Genie Website

http://wp.auburn.edu/rdggenie/