Reading to Learn Design

By Elizabeth Hamn

“Coloring the Way to Summarization”

 

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Rationale: Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Students who are at this level to learn strategies to better understand a text. This lesson introduces a strategy called about-point to help students learn to form a topic sentence about a paragraph by asking two questions: “What is the text about?” and “What is the main point the reader is making about the topic?” Students will learn how to summarize a text if they can answer these to questions after reading.

Materials: Individual copies of the Kids Discover article, “How Colored Crayons for Kids Were Invented”, pencil and paper for each student, summarization checklist, comprehension quiz, whiteboard and dry erase markers

Procedures:

Say—“Have you ever seen a movie or read a book that you really liked, and you immediately went to tell all your friends about it? You didn’t tell them every single tiny detail, but you made sure to tell them the most important parts. If you have done this, you have summarized the story of the book or movie! Summaries are important because you can’t remember everything, so you reduce what you read to remember the most important points that the author made about a topic.

Say—One way to summarize is by using a strategy called about-point. When we use this strategy, we ask ourselves two important questions—one is easy—“What is the text about”, and the other is more challenging to answer—“What is the main point the writer is trying to make about the topic? [Write these two questions on the whiteboard so the students can refer back to them.] The answers to both of these questions can help you make a topic sentence.

Say—later in this lesson, I will model how to practice the about-point strategy with the article “How Colored Crayons for Kids Were Made.” You will each read this article today while you practice summarization and asking yourselves these two important questions. Have you ever wondered how Crayons were invented? We use them all the time, and we may not even know about their history! Let’s all read on to find out more about how crayons came to be.

Say—You will need to know what the word pigment means in order to understand the article. Pigment is a substance that gives something a particular color when it is present in it or is added to it. It is what gives the crayons their colors. It is not what the crayons are made out of. You wouldn’t say that a green crayon isn’t as pigmented as a red crayon, but you would say that a green crayon contains green pigment while a red crayon contains red pigment. The second sentence is true because pigment is what makes the crayons have their color, and one crayon is not more pigmented than the other. Try finishing the sentence—I know my eyes are pigmented because ______. [Possible answers: they are blue, they are brown, they are green, etc.]

Say—Now that we understand the word pigment, we will read the article about how crayons were first invented. I can read the first paragraph and tell that it is about the history of crayons, but what important point does the author make? I think the author is talking about how far crayons have come since their beginning. A topic sentence could be crayons have a lot of history and have come a long way since they were first created.

Say—its your turn now to try about-point! Read the next paragraph in the article. What is this paragraph about? Correct, wax crayons. What is the main point about this paragraph? How Crayola came to be and the meaning of the name. To make a topic sentence, you will put these two points together. Wax crayons came to be Crayola, meaning “oily chalk.”

Say—Now, I want you to finish reading the article and write a topic sentence for each paragraph using about-point. 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 the invention of crayons. Remember to answer both questions in the about-point strategy. You can look at the board in case you forget the two questions. Don’t forget to only pick out the most important parts as you read each paragraph and to summarize in your own words! When you are finished, turn in your topic sentence page.

 

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

 

           

            Checklist:

            Student Name: _________________

1. ______ Wrote a topic sentence for each paragraph

2. ______ Deleted unimportant or repetitive information

3. ______ Significantly reduced the text from original to form summary

4. ______ Identified important points

5. ______ Successfully conjoined the important points to form a topic sentence

 

Comprehension Quiz:

1. What color was the first crayon ever made?

2. What does the name “Crayola” mean?

3. How many more colors are available today than when the first box of crayons was introduced?

4. Before making products for children, what kind of products did Crayola make?

5. What unique kinds of crayons can you now find today?

 

References:

“How Colored Crayons for Kids Were Invented” by Kids Discover https://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/how-colored-crayons-for-kids-were-invented/

“Whale, Let’s Summarize!” by Caroline Shea https://chs0025.wixsite.com/lessondesigns/reading-to-learn