Summarising
Summarising can be linked with 'determining importance/the author's main idea', as it requires readers reflect, differentiate important and unimportant detail, and mentally compile the important parts of the text into an overview or snapshot of the text. It can help readers during reading, as it enables them to keep track of the direction of the text and make predictions about what's to come. It also assists readers after reading to understand the author's main idea.
Teachers can assist readers by discussing texts as a class, section by section, by linking details or parts of the text which support the same ideas, paraphrasing text and highlighting recurrences, similarities/differences within the text as progressing through the text.
Teachers can assist readers by discussing texts as a class, section by section, by linking details or parts of the text which support the same ideas, paraphrasing text and highlighting recurrences, similarities/differences within the text as progressing through the text.
Questions and ideas for the Classroom
- "What makes a good summary?"
- Summarise a text individually and then as a class in 3, 5 and 10 sentences. - "Summarise each chapter in 3 sentences. Then compile these sentences and summarise the text in half a page." - "List the most important facts." - "Provide the main idea of the text and explain using 5 supporting sentences." - Explore ideas in the pictures of a text and students individually summarise. They then read the text and summarise. Have students compare summaries and then visually represent their summary. - Provide students with key words from a text and ask them to create a summary, then provide key phrases and explore how their summary changes - List key phrases and ideas within a text and ask students to select those which best summarise it. Have students justify their answers. - Oral presentation of summaries to the class and improving summaries as a class. |
This is an interesting read for students and an excellent text to practice summarising.
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Further Resources
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/summarizing
http://www.cleverschoolteacher.com/Categories/CS35Summarizing/tabid/139/CategoryID/59/List/1/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/
565283/Default.aspx
http://www.cer.education.nsw.gov.au/documents/249903/250184/Summarising%20.pdf
http://www.adlit.org/strategies/21827/
http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/free-reading-worksheets/reading-comprehension-worksheets/summarizing-worksheets-and-activities/
http://www.cleverschoolteacher.com/Categories/CS35Summarizing/tabid/139/CategoryID/59/List/1/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/
565283/Default.aspx
http://www.cer.education.nsw.gov.au/documents/249903/250184/Summarising%20.pdf
http://www.adlit.org/strategies/21827/
http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/free-reading-worksheets/reading-comprehension-worksheets/summarizing-worksheets-and-activities/