Elizabeth Escalera

A Reading to Learn Design

Summarizing with Seahorses

 

Rationale: One of the most important parts of reading is comprehension, which allows you to understand and learn the text that is being read. In this lesson, students will learn a useful comprehension strategy known as summarization. Summarization means to explain or write the main idea of a text in shortened form. One technique that can be used to help with summarization is the about-point method. The about-point method has students ask themselves two important questions after reading: what is the text about? And What is the main point the author is trying to make about this topic? Students will use the about-point method to help them summarize in this lesson.

 

Materials:

1. Pencils

2. paper

3. Comprehension quiz (1 for each student)

4. Printed copy of “SeaHorse” article for every student

5. Summarization checklist (for teacher only)

 

Procedure:

 

1. Say: “Have you ever told a friend about a book or a movie that you really enjoyed? Did you tell them about everything that happened or did you give them just the main details?” [Listen to student’s responses] “Yes, so you probably used a helpful strategy called summarizing to tell them a brief account of what happened in the story. Summarizing helps us to focus on the important details of what we are reading so that we can comprehend the text better. Today we are going to learn more about how to summarize by taking the important points of each part of a text, and writing a few sentences down so that we can remember the main things that the author wants us to know.”

2. Say: “To help us summarize, we are going to be using the about-point method. This means that after we read the article, we have to ask ourselves two questions: What is this text about? And what is the main point that the author is trying to make? This will help us create a sentence that summarizes each part of the text.

3. Say: “Today we are going to practice using the about-point strategy with an article called “Seahorses”. What do you already know about seahorses? [Let students answer]. I know that seahorses live in the ocean, but I wonder what else we can discover about these animals. In this text, we get to learn some fun facts about seahorses” [pass out printed articles].

4. Say: “Okay class, before we read, we are going to talk about an unfamiliar word that some of us may not know. The unfamiliar word is camouflage. An animal that can camouflage can hide or disguise themselves with the things around them. Let’s see the word camouflage in a sentence: “A seahorse can change their color to camouflage itself and hide from enemies.” “What other animals that you know of have the ability to camouflage? Raise your hand to answer.” [students respond]

5. Say: Okay, Let’s read this paragraph from the article about seahorses!”

 

“When you think of a fish, a seahorse might not be the first thing that 

comes to mind. Its head looks like a horse’s head. It swims upright. It is 

covered in bony plates instead of scales. But a seahorse is a kind of 

fish, in the same family as pipefish and seadragons.”

 

“We can see that this paragraph is telling us about how seahorses may look different from other fish. What are some of the points the author made? Seahorses might not come to mind when you think about fish and seahorses are in the same family as pipefish and seadragons. After reading and recognizing the main ideas, I can combine these ideas to make a topic sentence: “Seahorses might not come to mind when you think about fish, but they are in the same family as pipefish and seadragons.”

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

 

“It can be difficult to classify seahorses using just visual markings and characteristics because individual seahorses within the same species sometimes look very different from one another. This is because seahorses can change their shape and color to blend in with their surroundings. So scientists have used genetic research to help differentiate between the species.”

 

“What is this paragraph telling us? It is telling us that seahorses can look very different from one another. What points is the author making? Seahorses can change their shape and color to blend in with their surroundings. How can we combine both of these points? [students respond]. Good! Seahorses can look very different from one another because they can change their shape and color to blend in with their surroundings. 

 

1.  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 summarized the whole article on your own! This will help you remember facts about seahorses. The point of summarizing is to condense or shorten all the main points into simple sentences so remember to just pick out the meaningful information. After everyone has finished, we will take a short quiz to see what you remember about seahorses.”

 

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

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Summarization Assessment Checklist:

 

__ Used important information specifically from the article

__ No trivial examples from the article

__ Significantly reduced text from the original

__ Contains an idea from each section of the article

__ Organized summary into a paragraph

__ Answered both questions provided by the about-point method

 

Comprehension Quiz: 

1. What gives seahorses the ability to change color?

2. What do seahorses use to steer while swimming?

3. What kind of tails do seahorses have that help them hold objects?

4. How often do seahorses eat?

5. What makes seahorses unique?

 

References:

 

Animal Fact Guide, Seahorses

https://animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/seahorse/

A Reading to learn Design by Catherine Harrison, Slithering into Summarization!

https://catharrison0035.wixsite.com/my-site-2/reading-to-learn