READING TO LEARN | missmacdesigns

Swimmerizing the Tale of a Big Whale

Kassidy McCullough

Learning to Read

Rationale:

In order to become expert readers, our ultimate goal is to comprehend the information we are reading. One strategy that helps a reader to grasp the meaning of the text is summarization. Summarization is the process the reader takes to highlight all the important details and main ideas of the text to be able to construct a summary of the information. This lesson is designed to instruct students on how to summarize text (using a highlighter to mark important details) to be able to gain reading comprehension. The teacher will model brief summarization steps and guide them in deleting trivial and redundant information to find the important parts of the reading. Students will practice developing summarization as well as developing their reading comprehension skills in reading short passages while being assessed using the summarization checklist rubric.

Materials:

· Summarization Rules [poster]

1. Leave out unimportant information

2. Leave out repeated information

3. Pick out important information

4. Create the topic sentence

· Paper

· Pencils

· Highlighters

· “Orca Whale” printed articles (from National Geographic Kids) [for each student]

· “The Secret Language of Dolphins” printed articles (from National Geographic Kids) [for each student]

· Summarization Checklist Rubric (teacher use; attached below)

· SmartBoard

· Comprehension questions (written on the board)

Orca Whales: 1. What animals do orca whales hunt as prey?

2. What strategies do orca whales use to hunt?

3. How does the orca whale’s appearance serve as camouflage?

Dolphins: 1. What are some verbal sounds dolphins use to communicate?

2. What are some nonverbal sounds dolphins use to communicate?

3. Can dolphins breathe underwater? Defend your answer.

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today we are going to learn to summarize to become expert readers. Summarizing text helps us to better comprehend what we are reading. Can anyone tell me what it means to summarize when you read? [student responses] That’s right! When a reader summarizes the text, he/she reads a passage or part of a text, is able to take the most important details and main ideas, and uses that information to retell what the story or passage was about. Do we mention every detail in the passage we read? [student responses] No! We only mention the most important details and main ideas, leaving out the unimportant small details. Summarizing texts helps us to comprehend the information. Does anyone know what comprehend means? [student responses] To comprehend something is to be able understand what your reading and the meaning behind the story.”

Review with students the summarization checklist [on poster]

1. Leave out details that are unimportant or trivial because that information does not help us understand the text to summarize.

2. Leave out details that are repeated because that text has already been used or seen and will lead to confusion.

3. Pick out important information from the text because those important details and main ideas will help us to summarize the text to comprehend the message of the text.

4. Create a topic sentence that tells us what the text is about and mentions the main ideas presented in the text to introduce your summary.

2. Say: “Now, before we dive into summarizing, we are going to go over some vocabulary because we have to understand what words mean before we can comprehend the text’s message. Looking at the Orca whale article, let’s look at the first sentence that contains the word floe. The sentence reads, ‘Six tons of pure power whacks an ice floe floating in cold Arctic waters.’ This sentence tells me that floe has something to do with an ice form. Floe means a sheet of floating ice. This vocabulary word appears in the text several times, so it is important that we understand what it means. So, would we find floe in the Arctic Ocean or in the Gulf of Mexico? [student responses] That’s right! The Arctic Ocean because the weather is cold there and the water surface can become frozen, floating ice. This first passage of text also has one of our review words—predators. The sentence says, ‘Knocked into the sea, the seal becomes a meal for one of the ocean's top predators—the huge orca, or killer whale.’ Does anyone remember what predators are? [student responses] Predators are animals that prey on other animals to eat. When we did our unit on the African safari, what were the predators of zebras? [student responses] Right! Predators of zebras were lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and crocodiles.”

3. Say: “Now, we are going to read an article on orca whales. [Teacher pulls up article on the SmartBoard and passes out the article to each student] Let’s read the article silently and discuss it together. [Teacher and students read the article.] Some of my student helpers that have finished reading are passing out whale tale bookmarks. [bookmarks distributed] When you have finished reading, you can write down our Rules of Summarization from our poster on your bookmark to help you remember the steps on how to summarize and mark your place in a book. I will go over the rules of summarization briefly again before our discussion. [Teacher discusses summarization rules again] I’m going to show you how I would summarize the second paragraph of the article on orca whales by following our summarization steps, making sure to highlight important information with our highlighter and cross out unimportant or repeated information with our pencil. First, we are supposed to leave out unimportant information. I would leave out the third sentence of the passage because the amount of food an orca whale eats a day is a trivial fact and is not important to summarize. Second, we are supposed to leave out repeated information. The second sentence repeats what prey orca whales eat and gives unimportant information on how their diet varies. Third, we pick out important information to include our summary. The first sentence contains important information on what whales eat, and the last sentence discusses one of the hunting strategies orcas use to hunt prey. My passage should look like this when I highlight important information and cross out unimportant or repeated information:

Orcas hunt everything from fish to walruses—seals, sea lions, penguins, squid, sea turtles, sharks, and even other kinds of whales. Depending on the season and where they are, their diet varies—some orcas eat more fishes and squid than seals and penguins. But wherever they are in any of the world's oceans, average-sized orcas may eat about 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of food a day. Orcas have many hunting techniques, and bumping seals off ice is just one of them.

Then I would use my highlighted important information to construct one topic sentence on what I read in the passage. Ask yourself, “What is this passage about? What is the main idea?” My topic sentence would say, “Orca whales hunt fish, walruses, seals, sea lions, penguins, squids, sea turtles, sharks, and other whales using a variety of hunting techniques such as bumping prey off ice into the water.”

4. Say: “Now I want you to try to summarize the fourth paragraph of the orca whale article. I will be walking around to help you and feel free to ask your classmates for help as well. Make sure you follow the summarization steps listed on the poster and on your bookmark. Use your highlighter to mark important text and use your pencil to cross out unimportant or repeated texts. From your important text highlighted, construct one topic sentence on what the passage was about. When you finish, share your summarization process (along with reasoning to support decision) and your topic sentence with a partner. When everyone finishes, we will discuss our findings with the class. [Students complete task.] What did you cross out as unimportant information? [trivial first sentence measurement and fifth sentence on digestion] What did you cross out as repeated information? [fourth sentence is repetitive on eating a seal whole] What did you highlight as important [use of teeth shape, eat food whole, camouflage description] What was your topic sentence [Sample topic sentence: Orca whales use their teeth to rip and tear prey, swallow their food whole, and have white stomachs and black backs that help them to remain camouflaged in the water to catch prey.] Your marked paragraph should look similar to this:

Orcas' teeth, numbering about 45 and each measuring about 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) long, are shaped for ripping and tearing prey. Orcas do not chew their food. They can swallow small seals and sea lions whole. The prey slides down the orcas' throats! Bigger prey is eaten in chunks. The color pattern of orcas may help them sneak up on and attack their prey. Their backs are black, their stomachs are white. Animals looking down on an orca from above, such as a seal on an ice floe, might not see it because the whale's dark back blends with the water below.

Go ahead and finish marking the rest of the article, construct a short paragraph with a topic sentence to go over the entire article, and answer the comprehension questions. These tasks will help you to practice summarizing some more. Make sure you use complete sentences and correct punctuation when you write your sentences. I will be walking around the classroom to help if needed. We will discuss our summarization steps, paragraph with our topic sentence on the entire article, and answer the comprehension questions (1. What animals do orca whales hunt as prey? 2. What strategies do orca whales use to hunt? 3. How does the orca whale’s appearance serve as camouflage?). [Students complete tasks. Teacher aids activity. Class discussion is presented and important ideas are written on the board.]”

5. Say: “To finish up our lesson on summarization, I am passing out our next article titled ‘The Secret Language of Dolphins’ from National Geographic Kids. This article tells about how scientists are conducting research on dolphins and what information they have collected on how dolphins communicate with each other. This article will describe how dolphins communication in a variety of ways—sounds, gestures, and movements. I want you to read the entire article, use the steps of summarization on the poster and your bookmark to guide your highlighting important information and crossing out unimportant or repetitive information, and construct a paragraph on the entire article using the highlighted information with a topic sentence. Use the answers to the questions of ‘What is this article about? What is the purpose of this article? If I told someone about this article, what would I say?’ Answer the comprehension questions (1. What are some verbal sounds dolphins use to communicate? 2. What are some nonverbal sounds dolphins use to communicate? 3. Can dolphins breathe underwater? Defend your answer.), and complete the finish the sentence “Word Wizard” exercise: The animals on the floe were…. Remember to use complete sentences and correct punctuation.

6. For assessment, I will collect the student’s articles with markings made, paragraph with topic sentence, and comprehension question answers. The summarization checklist rubric (table below) will be used to assess the paragraph students wrote on ‘The Secret Language of Dolphins’ on the following criteria: constructing a simple topic sentence, delete unimportant information, delete repeated information, include supporting details, and constructing a summary that includes the main ideas.

Summarization Checklist Rubric:

When summarizing, did the student…

Construct a simple, topic sentence?

Delete unimportant information?

Delete repeated information?

Include supporting details?

Construct a summary that includes the main ideas?

References:

Clipart whale: http://www.animateit.net/details.php?image_id=5740

Bookmark: http://www.katescreativespace.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/whale-bookmark-template.jpg

Clark, Jessica. “Snowy Summaries!”

https://sites.google.com/site/mrsclarkslessondesigns/home/reading-to-learn-lesson-plan