Rationale: The learning goal for this lesson is to work with struggling readers on developing and/or strengthening their reading comprehension skills. Specifically, for upper-elementary-aged students (grades 3-5), students are working on their reading comprehension skills. Comprehension in reading is not only necessary, but also vital for students to learn because of reasons ranging from standardized testing to motivating them to read by growing their enjoyment for it. When students understand what they are reading, they are more likely to increase how much they read and explore articles, etc. Intelligence is often associated with reading comprehension because testing results lend themselves to those skills. Students can be brilliant but when they lack reading comprehension, they struggle to fully understand and process information. This lesson is aimed to teach the concept of summarization. This concept will be introduced and practiced so that it can be learned by application and put into use following these procedures: teacher modelling and students individually practicing and creating their own summaries. 

 

Materials: printed class copies of the article Why Gray Hair Grows, printed class copies of the article Early Gray Hair Blues, class set of highlighters, class set of red pens, ‘Summarization Strategies’ poster, form of projection (i.e. SmartBoard), class copies of Student Summarization Checklist, set of Teacher Assessment Checklist for each student, paper, pencils, class set of reading comprehension questions sheets

 

Procedures:

1. Introduction- “Today we are going to work on a strategy that will help us learn and remember information to become experts in comprehension. The specific strategy we will practice is called summarization. When we read information that we want to learn, like if we are researching a new topic, we must take mental notes and summarize as we go along. To summarize means to take information and make it shorter, while still including all the important parts of the text. If we do this, we will be able to answer comprehension questions after we finish the article, like questions based on facts that we learned when reading. It is a very useful technique and we will need it forever! Even when you grow up and get a job you will use this skill. You also use this skill in everyday conversation, like if your friend asks you for a book recommendation. You don’t want to tell them every sentence! You summarize and give the most important parts.”

2. “I have a poster up here that I want you to look at it and read along with me. It has very simple strategies. Let’s read together: 1. Delete less important details. 2. Pick out important ideas. 3. Organize the important ideas into one main idea. To do these strategies is your goal for our new concept, summarization. Now I will model the strategies to you.”

3. “Look at the board (projector or smart board where the paragraphs are displayed) and the paper at your desk titled Why Gray Hair Grows. It is an article from Discovery Kids about why peoples’ hair loses its color as they grow older. Follow along as we read it through first. There will be some tough words in articles that teach you new information. For example, one of the early words in the text we just read is ‘revealing’. It says our hair is revealing its natural color by losing its pigment. So, something is revealed when it is uncovered by something else. Something is taken away and a new thing is discovered. So if something is revealed, does it mean you can now see it now or that it went away? … Yes, you can see it now! The next new word is ‘pigment’. The text tells us that natural coloring substances are called pigments. So it is something that gives color and is natural. So, would you find natural pigments (like the ones in our text, melanin or carotene) in your body or in your crayons that you color with? The natural pigments that are in your hair come from your body.”

4. “Now, we will take note on the reading so that you can create a summary. You will do to your paper what I do with the board. To summarize, the first step is to delete information. We can use our red pens to visually represent this on our papers. I see this first sentence. *pointing at each sentence* It tells me that someday, my hair will change colors dramatically. This is important because it tells me what this article is about. The next sentence tells us a reason that our hair does not turn gray. This is important, but not important to our main question which is why hair does turn gray. We will cross this out. The next line says, its natural beauty”. This is more of an opinion; in a way it is redundant. We will cross this out. The next line says “Hair loses much of its color because it’s losing its melanin or carotene, which are your body’s natural coloring substances (also known as pigments).” This is very important because it is factual. Our second step is to pick out important ideas. So now we can go back and highlight the important things we have read. We highlight that our hair changes dramatically because that is the point of the text, and then we highlight that it changes because of the pigments. We understand that hair turns gray because it loses its color and we see that the pigments involved are melanin or carotene. Finish the next paragraph with your partners at your table, discussing what you think is important. Together, come up with the main idea of the text just like I did with the first paragraph.” *make sure to go around and monitor discussion and how well students are finding main ideas and summarizing*

5. “Now that you have practiced with my modelling and with your peers, you will practice alone. There is another article printed on your desk titled Early Gray Hair Blues. It uses some of the same vocabulary you just learned, along with more you can understand by context clues just as we did earlier. You will summarize this text. Use the checklist I printed out for you to check your work! You are going to become expert readers for comprehension.”

 

 

References:

Articles – Why Gray Hair Grows à http://discoverykids.com/articles/why-gray-hair-grows/

Early Gray Hair Blues à http://discoverykids.com/articles/early-gray-hair-blues/

 

Templates - Byrne, Mary Haley. “Summary Superstar!”

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/doorways/byrnemrl.htm

 

Day, Anna. “Stupendous Summarizing!”

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/awakenings/dayarl.html

 

 

1. Delete less important details.

2. Pick out important ideas.

3. Organize the important ideas into one main idea.

(‘Summarization Strategies’ poster)

 

 

ðI have written my topic sentence.

I have found supporting details to help answer the question.

I have removed unimportant information by crossing it out.

I have removed repeated ideas.

I have written a 3-5 sentence summary.

(Student Summarization Checklist)

 

 

ðStudent constructed a simple, topic sentence about the main idea.

The student deleted unimportant information.

The student included supporting details.

The student deleted repeated information.

The student wrote 3-5 complete sentences.

(Teacher Assessment Checklist)

 

 

It’s hard to imagine that those lovely locks of blond or brunette hair on your head may someday change color so dramatically. But your hair doesn’t turn white from a lifetime of watching really scary horror movies. Instead, it’s actually revealing its natural beauty. Hair loses much of its color because it’s losing its melanin or carotene, which are your body’s natural coloring substances (also known as pigments). As you grow older, the pigment production in hair follicles slows down and may eventually stop, cutting off your hair’s supply of coloring and making it appear gray or white. But your entire head of hair won’t turn gray overnight; after all, this is a process that takes about 10-20 years.

So when exactly will your hair start turning gray? It’ll probably depend on your own biological time-clock, as set by the genes you’ve inherited from your parents, your parents’ parents, and beyond. And that explains why some people get gray hair while they’re still in their teens and twenties–the melanin-producing cells of those people were set to stop working much sooner than others. But if this happens to you, don’t fret over your follicles. There’s nothing wrong with showing maturity at an earlier age!

(Paragraph for procedure 3)

 

1. _____ _____ slows and/or stops. As a result, the color changes to gray or white.

a. Pigment production

b. Hair follicles

c. Melanin

2. It is the ____ inherited from your parents and their parents that make the hair change color when it does.

a. Melanin

b. Genes

c. Follicles

3. It is unhealthy for your hair to turn gray early.

a. True

b. False

c. Not enough information to tell

(Reading Comprehension questions)