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Getting Healthy with Summarization
Sydney Grace Edge

Rationale: Summarization can be helpful for students to fully understand what they are reading by focusing on the most important parts of the text.  This can help students become expert readers and it is a vital tool that helps students emphasize on important details and main ideas in order to explain what the text was portraying. Research indicates that practice with finding specific details and summarizing the text can help with reading comprehension. This lesson will help guide students into finding these key details and main ideas. The instructor will model summarization and then students will show their understanding through independent practice. Once the instructor has guided how to summarize the students' text the students will be tested on their skills through comprehension questions provided by the instructor. 

 

Materials: 

  1. Individual copies of “Kids Healthy Eating Plate” article for each student

  2. Pencil and paper for each student

  3. Summarization checklist

  4. Comprehension quiz

  5. Dry erase board and marker

 

Procedures: 

  1.  Say: “Has there ever been a time that you have had something exciting happen or read a good story and you wanted to tell someone about it? But you did not tell them every detail of that story, right? You told them the important parts so that they would see the big picture. That is a strategy called summarizing. When we summarize we take a story or passage that we know and condense it into only the things we need to know.”

  2. Say: “Now we are going to practice a summarizing strategy known as about-point. How we do this is by asking ourselves two questions after we read a passage. Our first question can be answered quickly and easily, ‘What is this story about?’ The other is a little more difficult, ‘What point is the author trying to make?” Write these on the white board. “We will use our answers to compose a topic sentence. The word we use to describe the important part that the author is trying to talk about is the umbrella term.”

  3. Say: “Can anyone tell me something interesting about eating healthy? (Wait for responses) ‘Potatoes and French fries don’t count as vegetables because of their negative impact on blood sugar.’ “Today we are going to read an article about making healthy eating choices to help us work on our summarization skills.”

  4. Say: “Let’s take a look at our article together and I will show you how to summarize. ‘The Kid’s Healthy Eating Plate does not include sugary drinks, sweets, and other junk foods. These are not everyday foods and should be eaten only rarely, if ever. The Kid’s Healthy Eating Plate encourages the use of healthy oils in place of other types of fat.’ This paragraph talks about how we need to eat healthy oils, and junk food should only be eaten rarely. What is a form of junk food? (Wait for response) That’s right! Soda and Candy. Now we can combine these points to make a topic sentence for the paragraph, ‘A healthy diet does not include sweets, but it does include healthy oils.”

  5. Say: “Okay now it's your turn to try to summarize this, ‘Protein is a key part of any diet. The average person needs about 7 grams of protein every day for every 20 pounds of body weight. Because protein is found in an abundance of foods, many people can easily meet this goal. However, not all protein “packages” are created equal. Because foods contain a lot more than protein, it’s important to pay attention to what else is coming with it. That’s why the Healthy Eating Plate encourages choosing healthy protein foods.’ What was this paragraph about?” Wait for responses. “That's correct, eating healthy again! What point do you think the author was trying to make?” Wait for responses. Good answer! Proteins are a key part of our diet. So now we put the two ideas together to make a topic sentence, ‘Protein is a big part of our healthy diet.’ “Now I want you all to use the about-point method to summarize each paragraph.”

  6. Say: “Make sure to summarize using your own words, not copying the article. Come turn in your sentences to me when you have completed them and grab a quiz.”

  7. I will read each student's page of topic sentences, using the checklist, to see if they can correctly summarize.

 

Quiz:

  • Along with filling half of our plate with colorful vegetables and fruits, split the other half between? 

  • What is a key part of our diet?

  • What should be your drink of choice with every meal? 

  • What is not a part of our everyday lifestyle? 

  • What are other ways to be healthy?

 

Checklist:

Name: _____

Identified what the paragraph was about.

Identified the point that the author was trying to make.

Combined the two about points.

Wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph.

 

Sources:

-Article: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/kids-healthy-eating-plate/

-Logan Boyd: Hopping into Summarizing: https://lolomakayla99.wixsite.com/mysite/hopping-into-summarizing

-Olivia Rogers: https://sites.google.com/view/summarizing-with-sharks/home

-Image: https://thehungryjpeg.com/product/3747281-healthy-food-vector-diet-for-life-nutrition-modern-balanced-diet-isolated-flat-cartoon-illustration

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