Use Your Eyes to Summarize! 

Reading to Learn | Alaina Powell 

 

Rationale: One of the most important strategies for comprehending text is summarization. For this lesson, we will be focusing on the use of “about-point” summarization. This is a method that asks the students two questions regarding the text they are summarizing. The first question is “what is the text about?” and the second question is “what is the main point the writer is making about the topic?” The first questions will determine the subject of the topic sentence and the second questions will help with creating the predicate of the topic sentence. 

 

Materials: Each student will need their own copy of the article “Your Eyes” from Kidshealth.org which will be linked below. Each student will also need paper and a pencil. Summarization checklist and comprehension quiz for each student. 

 

Procedures:

1.  Say: Today we are going to learn about a new reading comprehension strategy, Summarization! To be good readers we need to learn how to pick out the most important information to remember and learning how to summarize will help us with that! We will take the whole text and shrink it down into one main idea. 

2. One way to summarize is called “about-point.” This is when you ask yourself two questions after reading to get to the main idea of the text. The first questions will be “what is this article about?” and the second question will be “what is the main point the author is trying to make?” We are all going to try this strategy in just a minute. We are going to be reading an article that talks about our eyes and how they work! Have you ever wondered how your eyes let you see? Or how doctors are able to look at your eyes in the doctor's office? 

3. First, let's talk about some of the important vocabulary in this article. One word mentioned in the article is “involuntary.” Does anyone know what voluntary means or have heard this word before? Involuntary means it happens without you having to control it or telling it to happen. For example, breathing is involuntary so that you continue to have enough oxygen in your body. 

4. Before you all try this alone, let's practice as a class. Here is a passage from the article: 

 

    The eye is about as big as a ping-pong ball and sits in a little hollow area (the eye socket) in the skull. The eyelid protects the front part of the eye. The lid helps keep the eye clean and moist by opening and shutting several times a minute. This is called blinking, and it's both a voluntary and involuntary action, meaning you can blink whenever you want to, but it also happens without you even thinking about it.

 

This paragraph is about the eye, but what are the important points the author is making? By using the two questions used in about-point summarization, I can come up with the topic sentence: The eye sits in the eye socket with the eyelid protecting it through the process of blinking which happens when you want it to and without you having to think about it. 

1. Now it is your turn! I want you all to read the entire article on your own. After each paragraph, I want you to write a topic sentence using the about-point strategy we just learned. Once you have done this for all the paragraphs, you will have a great understanding of all the main points the author wanted you to remember. Only include the most important details. When everyone is done we will have a quiz to check your knowledge of the article. 

 

Assessment: Collect all summaries and evaluate using the below checklist: 

__ Collected important information

__ Ignored trivia and examples in summary.

__ Significantly reduced the text from the original

__ Sentences brought ideas together from each paragraph

__ Sentences organized coherently into essay form.

Quiz Questions: 

1. What is the process that keeps the eye clean and moist?

2. What is the colorful part of the eye?

3. How does the eye protect itself?

4. How do doctors look at the inner parts of the eye?

5. Why is it hard sometimes for someones cornea, lens, and retina to work together? 

6. How do glasses help the person wearing them?

7. What are some steps you can take to help protect your eyes? 

Reference: 

“Your Eyes” reviewed by KidsHealth Medical Experts 

https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/eyes.html 

 

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

https://murraba.wixsite.com/readinglessons/reading-to-learn 

 

Caroline Bibbee, “Practicing about-point with Pandas!”

https://cgb0046.wixsite.com/website-1/rl-design 

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