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Reading to Learn Design: All About Frogs

 

Rationale:       The goal of reading is to comprehend and learn from what we have read. After fluency has been practiced and reached, readers can then aim to learn how to work on comprehending what they read. How well a reader understands what they read and what they learn from the text will represent the reader’s comprehension. To help readers learn more about a given text, summarization can be used. This allows readers to choose to most important details from a text and not focus on minor details. One way to help teach readers to summarize is by taking notes. This lesson will help readers learn how to find the main ideas in a text, construct a meaning from what they read, and ultimately summarize the text.

Materials:       

  • Student copies of All About Frogs

  • Class set of National Geographic: The Frog Life Cycle

  • Paper for each student

  • Class set of Pencils

  • Summarization Activity Checklist (1 for each student)

  • Teachers copy of National Geographic: The Frog Life Cycle for demonstrations

  • Teacher Assessment Checklist (One per student)

  • Comprehension Exit Quiz with Questions

 

Summarization Activity Checklist:

  • _____ I have removed unimportant information by crossing it out.

  • _____ I have removed repeated ideas.

  • _____ I have found supporting details to help answer the question.

  • _____ I have written my topic sentence.

  • _____ I have written a 3-5-sentence summary.

Teacher Assessment Checklist:

When summarizing, did the student:

  • Construct a simple, topic sentence about the main idea? Y/N

  • Delete unimportant information? Y/N

  • Include supporting details? Y/N

  • Delete repeated information? Y/N

  • Write summary in 3-5 complete sentences? Y/N

Procedures:     Introduction:  1. Say: “Today we will be working on our reading comprehension skills to help us become better readers! We already know how to read words and put them into sentences, so let’s work on understanding what those words mean in relation to each other and the message of the text. We are going to focus on the strategy of summarization. Can someone please remind me what it means to summarize something? (Wait for student response) Exactly, to summarize means to find the most important information, or big ideas, in a passage and put them together to create a shorter version. A summary can also be a description of the main parts in a story that include the characters, setting, and plot. We summarize to help us organize our thoughts while reading.  In order to find this important information, what are some things we might have to do? (Wait for response) Yes, we need to get rid of all the information that does not help us answer the overall 0question. Our lesson today will help you become master summarizers by learning the important steps we take to summarize a passage, and then put your skills to the test by summarizing an article on your own.”

Activities: 2. Hand out Summarization Activity Checklist, pencils, and paper. Say: “I am passing out to you a sheet of paper that says, ‘Summarization Checklist.’ This piece of paper has all the necessary steps listed to help us summarize while we read. In order to become a good summarizer, we must first know what our summary is going to be about. The first step is to figure out the main idea, or topic, of the passage. Then we will read through the passage. As you are reading, pay attention to the unimportant details that are not necessary to include in our summary. We know something is not important if it is stated only once and doesn’t relate to our background knowledge of the topic.  Sometimes articles will state the same idea multiple times. It is important that we recognize why that is being repeated, because often it is a key point the author is trying to make. However, once we have seen it once, we don’t need to see it again so we can ignore the repeated statements. Next, it is important to provide enough detail when summarizing an article. Our next step is to read through the article and find the supporting, or helpful, details. Anything that stands out to you as being important, you should take note of.  After you have eliminated unimportant and repeated details and selected important details, you can begin to formulate your topic sentence. This sentence will go at the beginning of your summary and provide the main idea of your summary. Once you create a topic sentence, put a check mark on that line to help me keep track of what has been completed. Then you can begin writing out your summary on the loose-leaf sheet. Remember, a summary is a brief overview of what you have just read. This means it needs to stay short, about 3-5 sentences. Be sure not to copy word for word what was stated in the article, but to create a summary using your own words.”

​3. Hand out copies of “National Geographic: The Frog Life Cycle.” Say: “I am handing out copies of an article titled: National Geographic: The Frog Life Cycle.  Just by reading the title, can someone tell me what they think this article could be about? (Wait for response) Great job! I think we might be reading about frogs and how they grow.  

4. ​Say: “Before we take a look at this article, let’s review our three steps to summarizing: eliminate the unnecessary details that will not help you summarize, as well as any repeated details, find the important details (items, events) that will help you write your summary, organize your ideas in a thoughtful way beginning with your topic sentence and continuing with the supporting details you found earlier.”

5. Read article aloud to class. Say: “Well now we know more about how frogs grow! Now that we know exactly how a frog grows, let’s think about how we can summarize this article. First, what is the article talking about? What is the main idea? Right, frogs! That is an important term, so let’s remember it. Now let’s find some important details that help us answer the question: how do frogs grow? We need to look for details and action words that will help us reach our conclusion. Let’s go back and reread through the article.”

“Let’s begin by continuing to mark and remember some of the words or ideas that we see a lot of. I see the words eggs, tadpoles, and frog a lot; these must be important. Now I need to find out why they are important, so I must look at the verbs the author uses. The first paragraph in the passage mentions that: “These powerful limbs are the secret to their success – and incredibly, it takes baby frogs weeks and weeks to grow them!”  The next paragraph says that: “Like beautiful butterflies, frogs and toads undergo an astonishing transformation – which is called ‘metamorphosis’– as they grow up.”  These all sound like important points that help us understand why spacesuits are necessary. Now I need to reread the paragraphs and cross out the things that are not important. These include descriptions, repeated topics, and extra information that takes away from the main point of the article. See how easy summarizing is!”  After giving the students time to mark up their articles, inform them that we must look for a topic sentence.  Say: “Now that we have all of our key information to help us answer the big question, what should our topic sentence be? Remember, the topic sentence includes the main idea of the passage. We’ve learned that frogs take a long time to grow and they change from many different forms. My topic sentence could be: ‘Frogs develop from eggs to tadpoles to frogs over a period of time.” Once finished, review the summary with the students by using the summarization checklist.  Say: “Now that we are finished with our summary, let’s go back and check if we have all the necessary components for a good summary. Let’s see, do I have a topic sentence? Did I include supporting details? Did I get rid of unimportant information? Is my summary 3-5 sentences? Well done! We have a wonderful summary!”

6. Pass out copies of All About Frogs. Say: “Now that we have practice summarizing an article together, I want you to try on your own! This article I’m handing out to you is also about frogs. You are going to be reading all about them!  Then, I would like you to write your own 3-5 sentence summary on your other sheet of loose-leaf paper. While you are reading don’t be afraid to look back at your summarization checklist for steps to help you summarize.”

Assessment: 7. To assess the students on their summarization strategy skills, I will ask them to turn in their copy of the All About Frogs and check it to see if they have picked out and crossed out the correct details using their pencils. I will also have them turn in their sheet of loose-leaf paper with their 3-5 sentence summary. Once they have turned in both the article and the summary, they will pick up a copy of the reading comprehension questions sheet, answer to the best of their ability, and then turn it in. The students will be individually assessed on their summarization skills using the Teacher Assessment Checklist, and on their understanding of the article by correctly answering the reading comprehension questions.

 

Reading comprehension questions for All About Frogs:

  1. What kind of animal are frogs?

A. Mammals

B. Amphibians

C. Birds

D. Fish

  1. Where do frogs mainly live?

A. Water

B. Mud

C. Land 

   3. What is the process of changing within a frog’s life cycle called?

 A. Mitosis

B. Metamorphosis

C. Mammalian

Answer Key:

1. B

2. C

3. C

Reference:

Morganne Cieslak’s Reading to Learn Design: Summarization is Out of This World! https://mec0057.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/reading-to-learn

National Geographic’s The Frog Life Cycle https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/science/nature/frog-life-cycle/

Kiddy House’s All About Frogs: https://kiddyhouse.com/themes/frogs/

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