Rationale: Summarization is one of the two most powerful strategies for comprehending text. An effective method of summarizing is called about-point, which asks two critical questions about the text: a) What is the text about? This is usually an easy question, and it identifies the topic that becomes the subject of the topic sentence. b) What is the main point the writer is making about that topic? Since the author usually makes several points, the reader should mark out information that is not important, underline important information, and then find an umbrella term that covers all the main points the author is making. The main point becomes the subject of the topic sentence. The teacher will model how to detect important information that is needed to write a summary.

 

Materials:

White board & marker

(All items are needed for each student) Pencils, paper, individual copies of the article “Bottlenose Dolphin,” summarization checklist, comprehension quiz, rubrics for assessment

 

Procedures:

1. Say: “Today we are going to learn how to summarize. Raise your hand if you have ever read an article or a book and then recommended it to a friend! Did you read them the whole thing, or did you just tell them about the most important parts? Right! When we are telling someone about a book or article, we only tell them about the most important parts of the story. This is called summarizing. Summarizing means to find the most important information in anything you read. Good readers don’t try to remember everything. They use summarization strategies to remember only the important points the author is making about the topic. In that way, they reduce a text that may have hundreds or thousands of words to a compact gist that is easy to remember. This skill also makes it easier for us to comprehend what we read."

2. Say: “The best way to summarize is called about-point. In about-point, you ask yourself an easy question and a tough question, and you use your answers to make a topic sentence. The easy question is "What is the text about?" The tough question is "What is the main point the writer is making about that topic?" To answer this question, you have to think of an umbrella term for all the important points the writer is telling you.” *Write these questions on the board for the students to refer to*

3. Say: “We are going to learn how to about-point a paragraph today. First, we need to discuss two important vocabulary words that you’ll be reading: identification and frequency. The first word we are going to go over is identification. Identification is what we use to prove who a person is (this is most commonly a driver’s license). Identify means ‘to find out who someone is or what something is.’ For example, ‘I tried to identify the bug.’ Now I want you to pull out a piece of paper and answer the question, ‘What is something that you identify?’ The second word is frequency. Frequency means something that occurs often. For example, I frequently take my dog on a walk. On the same piece of paper, write something that you do frequently.”

4. Say: “Now that we know the words identification and frequency, we will look at a paragraph from the article together: ‘Bottlenose dolphins squeak, squawk and use body language—leaping as high as 20 feet in the air, snapping their jaws, slapping their tails on the surface of the water, blowing bubbles and even butting heads. Each dolphin has a special whistle that it creates soon after it is born. This whistle is used for identification, just like a human’s name. Dolphins also produce high frequency clicks, which act as a sonar system called echolocation (ek-oh-low-KAY-shun). When the clicking sounds hit an object in the water, like a fish or rock, they bounce off and come back to the dolphin as echoes. Echolocation tells the dolphins the shape, size, speed, distance, and location of the object.’ This paragraph is about bottlenose dolphins, but what important points does the author make? Bottlenose dolphins each have a whistle that can be used to identify them. The clicks they make act as an echolocation that is used to tell their shape, size, speed, distance, and location. I can form a topic sentence by joining these two points: A dolphin can be identified by its whistle, but its clicks tell its echolocation.”

5. Say: “It’s your turn to try about-point! Read this paragraph: ‘These sea mammals feed on fish, squid, and shrimp. A group of dolphins will cooperate to make a mud ring to trap fish. Then, some of the dolphins in the group will wait outside the ring for the fish that try to escape, gulping them up as a snack.’”

6. Say: “What is this paragraph about? Correct, bottlenose dolphins. What are the main points that the author makes about dolphins? Yes! Dolphins feed on a variety of sea creatures. What is another point that the author makes? Right, they also work together to eat their prey. To make a topic sentence, you will put these points together! Let’s try: Bottlenose dolphins…? Bottlenose dolphins eat a variety of sea creatures, and sometimes they work together to catch them.”

7. Say: “Now, I want you to finish reading the article and write a topic sentence for each paragraph using about-point. After you have written your sentences I want you to combine them into paragraph form. This will allow you to have a strong summary of the whole article once you are finished. Your summary will help you remember the most important facts about bottlenose dolphins. Remember to answer both questions in about-point to help you form a topic sentence. You can look at the board for the questions if you need help. Don’t forget to only pick out the most important points that the author is making in each paragraph, and to summarize in your own words. When you are finished, staple your topic sentence page to the article and turn it in to me.”

8. I will review each student’s topic sentence page to determine if they successfully summarized the paragraphs of the article. I will use the assessment checklist to record student grades. The students will also take a brief comprehension quiz.

​

Summary Checklist:

Did I…

__ Write my topic sentence?

__ Find supporting details to help answer the question?

__ Remove unimportant information by marking it out?

__ Remove repeated ideas?

__ Create a 3-5 sentence summary?

​

Assessment:

Did the student…

__ Wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph

__ Collected important information/ deleted unimportant or repetitive information

__ Significantly reduced the text from the original

__ Successfully conjoined the important points to form a topic sentence

​

Quiz:

1. Up to how fast can dolphins swim?

2. What does an echolocation tell about the dolphin?

3. How often do dolphins shed their outermost layer?

4. Do dolphins have a sharp or dull sense of hearing?

5. How do scientists believe that dolphins hear?

6. How do dolphins work together to catch their food?

​

Resources:

“Bottlenose Dolphin”

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/bottlenose-dolphin/

 

Murray, Bruce. Using About-Point to Awaken the Main Idea

https://murraba.wixsite.com/reading-lessons/rl