Summarizing with Sea Turtles

by: Kaley Stewart

 

 

Rationale:One way to check and see if students understand what they have read is to test their comprehension. A great way to test a student’s comprehension is to get them to summarize a book they have read.

Summarizing a story is simply picking out the main ideas and emphasizing the fundamental facts. It helps students understand it better because they focus on the main ideas that the author intended rather than every little detail.

 

This lesson will help students acquire the knowledge to summarize a story in order to understand the deeper meaning. Students will use the following summarization rules: choose topic sentence, cut out minor details or ideas that are repetitive, and highlight noteworthy ideas and shorten them in to one sentence.

 

1. Materials:

2. Paper for students

3. Pencils for students

4. Highlighters for students

5. SMARTboard

6. Assessment checklist (teacher use)

7. Class set of article, “Green Sea Turtles” by Kids National Geographic

8. Summarizing Rules Poster:

       1. Choose the main idea of the topic.

       2. Cross out useless sentences or repeated ideas.

       3. Highlight important facts and ideas and make them in to short sentences.

 

Procedures:

           

  1. Can anyone tell me if they have ever read a book that you found interesting, so you told your friend about it? Did you tell them every little   detail, or did you tell them the important parts that you read? (Call on a student who has hand raised). Yes, you only tell them the important parts of the story! This is called summarizing, and this particular skill can help us to better understand the books we read, therefore making us better readers! If you can summarize a book or an article, then that lets me know you understand the material that you have read.

 

 

2. Before we practice summarization, let’s review what we have learned about sea turtles so far this week. Earlier this week we discussed how sea turtles can live to be pretty old, can anyone tell me the normal lifespan of a green sea turtle? .....That’s right, eighty to one-hundred years old, wow! Can anyone tell me how long green sea turtles can hold their breath? Is it seconds, minutes, hours, or days?....That’s correct friends, they can hold their breath for several hours at a time! Wouldn’t it be cool to live the life of a green sea turtle!?

 

3. "Ok friends I am very proud that you all have kept the important information about green sea turtles in your brilliant brains!  Now we are going to read the first paragraph of our new article about green sea turtles. Before we begin reading, let’s go over a few short rules about summarization:       

 

1. First, we must choose the main idea of the text.

2.  Second, we need to cross out useless sentences or repeated ideas.

3. The final task we highlight the important facts and ideas and make these into just a few short sentences.

 

 

  *I will create a summarization rules poster and hang it where everyone can refer back to it while working.

Students, be sure to look at the rules if you forget anything. Also, be sure that this    summary is in your own words and not your neighbors or the authors. Summarization works best when you read the article slowly, read the important parts at least two times, and take notes as you go. Taking notes will help you point out the main ideas easier.  Everyone take a sheet of paper that is being passed around, and fold it in half like a hotdog. On one side label it  “Important Ideas,” and on the opposite side, “unimportant ideas.” We are going to do practice doing it on paper rather than on the article pages, because if you are ever trying to summarize a book you are reading you will not be able to cross out the unimportant information. You will have to make a mental note to not include that in your summary, or write it on your “unimportant ideas” page. Before we begin reading our article, let’s go over our vocabulary words, friends. Being familiar with new vocabulary words will help you have a better understanding of the meaning of the article.

Vocabulary list:

*Coastline

*Clutch

*Migrate

*Poaching

*Pollution

 

4. *This is repeated for each vocabulary word listed above.

           

                  -Lets look at what the word coastline means. A coastline is the land along

                      the edge of an area of water.

 

                 -Where are some places we see a coastline? ....Yes, the beach where the

                    water and dry sand meet, that is a great example. Does anyone know of

                  another place?....Yes, where a lake and the grass meet. Great job, friends!

               

                 -A coastline wouldn’t be a place where fish hang out. A coastline would be

                  a place where sea animals, who can go on land, hide things or take a break

                  from swimming. After we read our article, we will understand why sea

                    turtles go to the coastline of an ocean.

 

                 -Finish this sentence: The ocean’s coastline is where my friends and I.....

             

              Possible responses:

              .....like to make sandcastles because we have wet and dry sand.

 

5. Teacher says “Now we are going to practice summarizing with an article called "Green Sea Turtle." This article is an overview of a sea turtle’s life and points out information about a green sea turtles body. Let’s read the article to find out what is so interesting about the green sea turtles. We are going to read the first paragraph together. “Green sea turtles are the world’s largest species of hard-shelled sea turtles. While most individuals weigh about 300 to 400 pounds (136 to 181 kilograms), some can be as heavy as 440 pounds (204 kilograms).

 

6. Everyone watch me as I summarize the first paragraph. Let’s look at the  first sentence.“ Green sea turtles are the world’s largest species of hard-shelled sea turtles.” Is it important that green sea turtles are the world’s largest species of hard-shelled sea turtles? I think it is important so let’s write this under the “important ideas” column. However, I do not think that the second sentence is important, “While most individuals weigh about 300 to 400 pounds (136 to 181 kilograms), some can be as heavy as 440 pounds (204 kilograms).” The first sentence is important becuase it lets us know that green sea turtles are not average, they are unique in size. Let’s look at the next part- “These turtles are found nesting along the coastline of more than 80 countries, with the largest nesting populations found in Costa Rica and Australia. Green sea turtles spend most of their lives underwater, where they can rest for up to five hours at a time before coming up for air. When active, they typically alternate between being underwater for a few minutes and coming up to the surface to breathe air for a few seconds. Green sea turtles are also known to sunbathe on land.” I see a new vocabulary word in the first sentence, coastline, that let’s us know that sea turtles are sea and land animals. Should we put this under important, or unimportant ideas?...Correct,important ideas! Also, let’s look at the next sentence, “Green sea turtles spend  most of their lives underwater, where they can rest for up to five hours at a  time before coming up for air.” This is important information because it lets us know that sea turtles aren’t like fish, they can’t stay under water forever, they have to come up every so many hours to get air. I think the last sentence can be crossed out and put under our unimportant information.

 

7. Now that we have finished the first paragraph, let’s try to create a topic sentence. Remember the topic sentence is one sentence that explains what the paragraph is talking about. So we only need to look at important information side of our paper. I have that green sea turtles are the largest species of hard-shelled turtles in the world, and that they can walk on land, and they have to come up from the water to get air. I would make this a topic sentence by saying: “ Green Sea Turtles are the largest hard-shelled turtles throughout the world, and are one of the few large sea animals that can walk on land. This sentence has all the important parts of the paragraph because it leads us in to understanding what is coming up in the other paragraphs, serves as a good summary of a turtles main aspects of life, along with summarizing the paragraph. Does anybody have any questions?

 

8. Now I want you all to summarize the other paragraphs. Remember to write down important and non-important information under each correct side of your paper to help you create a topic sentence. Feel free to look at our          summarizing poster if you need help. Create a topic sentence for each paragraph and when you have finished, staple the article to your paper with your important/unimportant idea scratch sheet, and turn it in to me.

 

9. Assessment: I will review each student's idea chart to determine if they could successfully summarize the different paragraphs. I will use the assessment checklist to record each child's grade.Topic sentences may vary slightly, but I will be looking to see if they child included the important information in each.

 

Comprehension Questions:

1. Where do sea turtles lay their eggs?

2. As sea turtles grow older, the areas do they live near are..?

3. Some dangers that sea turtles encounter are? Do we know why they encounter these dangers?

 

Assessment Checklist: Y(yes) or N(No)

 

            Student Name: ___________________________

1. Did the student fill out the chart on his/her paper?    ________                            

2. Did the students come up with topic sentences for the remaining paragraphs? __________

3. Did the student successfully delete unimportant/redundant information? _________

4. Did the student successfully identify important parts? _________

5. Did the student use the important information to come up with topic sentences? ___________

 

 

 

 

References:

  National Geographic, Green Sea Turtle

 http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/green-sea-turtle/

 

Faison, Mary Cameron,  Buzz into Summing:

http://marycameronf.wix.com/msfaisonsreadingtips#!buzz-into-summarization/crno.     

 

Katy Moore,  Hey, What’s the Big Idea?:

https://sites.google.com/site/katymooreresearchbasedreading/reading-to-learn-lesson-design 

 

clip art:

http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/7Ta/KXR/7TaKXRp7c.jpeg

 

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