Sunrise, Sunset! Summarize and Don’t Forget!

A Reading-to-Learn Design, by Logan Bergeron

 

Rationale: The goal of this lesson is to help students improve their reading comprehension skills so that they can begin to read texts for the purpose of gaining new knowledge. In this lesson, students will learn how to summarize texts as a strategies that is supported by research to aid in developing reading comprehension skills. Summarizing texts involves filtering out the trivial details to determine the focal points of the text. The teacher will first model summarization using the about-point method and teach unfamiliar vocabulary terms prior to reading a short informative text on sunrise and sunset. Then, students will read and summarize the text in their own words. Lastly, comprehension questions will be asked to assess student understanding of the passage.

 

Materials:

• Whiteboard and dry erase markers (or Smart Board)

• Print-out of “Sunrise and Sunset” for each student

• Checklist/poster of summarization rules (see bottom of lesson)

• Pencils and paper for students

• Reading comprehension quiz (see bottom of lesson)

 

Procedure:

1. Say: Hello everyone! Before we start our reading lesson today, I want you to raise your hand if you have ever read a good book, and I mean a really good book that you wanted all your friends to read too! [Pause as students raise hands] Do you have a book in mind? Imagine that you are going to tell somebody about that book right now. What would you say? Of course, you don’t have time to share every detail of the story, and you may not even be able to remember it all if it has been awhile since you’ve read it, and that’s okay! So, what do you say? Well, you would pick out the biggest, most important parts of the story to tell them and leave out the small details in between. This strategy is called summarization – that is our lesson for today! And did you know? Summarizing stories can actually help us remember and understand what they are about, which is great for helping us learn while we read!

2. Say: To learn how to summarize, I am going to teach you a strategy called “about-point”. To summarize a text using about-point, you must ask yourself two questions after reading the story: “What is this story about?” and “What is the point of the story?” [Write these questions on the board] To answer the first question, it is important to sort out the small ideas from the big ones. These big, important parts are called the main ideas, and by finding them, we can usually answer what the story is about. Then, to answer the second question, you must think about what the author is trying to do or say by telling the story. Ask yourself if there is a lesson you learned from the story that you can relate to your own life. Finally, we will use the answers we come up with for these questions to write a topic sentence, which is a sentence that talks about the most important parts of whole story. And there you have it! That is how we summarize a story! Let’s practice our new summarizing strategy with a story.

3. Say: The passage we are going to read today is about sunrise and sunset. What do you all know about sunrise and sunset? [Wait for responses, write a few key details on the board] Wow, those are some great answers. The story we are going to read will help us learn even more about how sunrise and sunset work and why they appear to be so colorful in the sky! But before we read it, I want to go over a vocabulary word in the text to make sure we can understand the story by knowing what the word means. This new word is horizon. The horizon is the line we see when we look in the distance that ‘separates’ the sky and the Earth. It is not like a real line that we can travel to or touch, but one that we see and imagine as the boundary between the sky and the ground or the sea. If I were to use the word horizon in a sentence, I might say ‘I like to watch the sun set over the horizon at the beach’. Where are some other places you might see the horizon? [Wait for responses] Awesome! So, let’s review. I want you to try to fill in the rest of this sentence: ‘The horizon is the line where…’ [Call on a few students to respond and briefly reply if they are correct or incorrect] Right! The horizon is where the Earth and sky meet!

4. Say: Alright, let’s look at this article and I will show you how I can use the about-point strategy to summarize the first part of the text. First, I am going to read it: “The giant yellow ball in the sky is the Sun. At any given time throughout each day the Sun is shining, and it is day time somewhere. The Sun gives off heat, provides energy for living things, and can be used to provide solar power for electricity. The Sun appears to be moving across the sky as it shines throughout the day. As the Sun shines, the shadows change, and soon the day will come to ends it. Finally, in the evening the Sun seems to disappear as it becomes dark. The cycle continues day after day beginning in the morning with a sunrise and then ending in the evening with a sunset. This phenomenon may be seen on the horizon over the ocean or viewed from a mountaintop across a forest of trees.” So, now I need to ask myself what this part of the passage is about. It seems like it is talking about the Sun changing in the sky throughout the day from sunrise at the beginning to sunset at the end. [Write this the about on the board as you say it] Okay, next I need to know the point of the passage. I think the point is to tell us about the cycle from daytime to nighttime to daytime again, and so forth. [Write the point on the board under the about] Then I need to put the about and point of the passage together to finally make my topic sentence. How about this: ‘The Sun moves across the sky day after day, creating our days and nights, and causes us to see the events called sunrise and sunset.' [Write the topic sentence on the board below the about and point statements]

5. Say: Okay, now that I have shown you how I would summarize part of the story, it is your turn! I am going to divide you up into groups (or partners, depending on the size of the class) and give each group a part of the passage to summarize. I want you to read silently to yourselves first, and then share your thoughts about the about and point of the passage with each other. Then work together to come up with a topic sentence for your part of the article. I will give you a checklist with the summarization rules, so make sure you complete all the steps! I want at least one person from each group to write down the topic sentence your group comes up with on a sheet of paper and give it to me. When everyone is done making their topic sentences for all the parts of the story, I will read the whole article, and then I will read the topic sentences you all came up with in order and we should be able to see what the big ideas we can learn about sunrise and sunset are! [Provide time for students to complete the activity. Read the article, then read the topic sentences in front of the class. Praise good summarizing and comment upon or discuss what can be learned from the story]

6. Say: Wow, you all did an awesome job making summaries for the story. Since we just learned so much about sunrise and sunset, I am going to hand out a quiz to see how well we understood the new information we just read about! [Pass out quiz, instruct students to answer the questions and turn it in when they are done. Assess student answers to determine their level of comprehension]

 

 

Resources:

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

“Sunrise and Sunset.” SoftSchools.com, Softschools.com, www.softschools.com/language_arts/reading_comprehension/science/436/sunrise_and_sunset/.

 

Summarization Rule Checklist:

1. First, filter out details that are not important. (Cross out ‘fun facts’ and repeated info.)

2. Next, identify the key ideas of the text. (Underline or write down: What is the text ‘about’?)

3. Then, figure out the big idea the author is trying to say. (Write down: What is the ‘point’ of the text?)

4. Finally, write a topic sentence that combines the ‘about’ and the ‘point’ of the text.

 

Reading Comprehension Quiz:

1. Underline the correct response: The (movement of the sun across the sky / turning of the Earth on its axis) causes daytime and nighttime to occur.

2. (M/C) The sun rises and sets on the: (A) Axis; (B) Horizon; (C) Dusk; (D) Atmosphere; or (E) Clouds

3. What makes us see different colors in the sky during sunrise and sunset?

4. Fill in the blanks: The Sun rises in the _____ and sets in the ______.

5. When are the two times that twilight can occur?

6. (T/F) In some places, it can be dark all day or light all night for one day of the year.