Summary

I have said it before and I will say it again,those of you that have students practice summarizing skill are giving them more critical thinking practice "bang for their buck" than any other strategy. The ability to filter complex ideas and concepts into small manageable packages requires students to evaluate everything from main idea and supporting details to essential and nonessential information. I would challenge you to show me a student that can create an accurate and correct summary of something they have read without reading it well.

This PowerPoint has some guidance in having kids create a summary that incorporate reference to main idea and supporting details.

Many summary exercises are about challenging student to use less and less space or fewer and fewer words to capture what they have read. One example would have you give students a stick-it note and challenge them to use one side of the note (using normal and neat writing) to take notes about a brief reading. You can then give them a smaller stick-it note and ask them to select the most important points to make it fit on there.

Another exercise, which I like a bit more, is to simply have students read something, of whatever length you choose and summarize it in a set number of words. For instance, you might ask them to read Section 1 of a chapter and summarize it in 30 words or less. As you go on, you could challenge them to get it down to twenty word or even have them work in pairs to figure out how to get it down to twenty words. It will force them to really consider what is essential in the text.

An addition version of the exercise above is to have student, rather than taking regular notes on a reading, use twenty words or less to summarize a first portion (maybe the first bold heading), then have them read the next heading and summarize the two combined portions in twenty words or less. This has the added bonus of forcing them to make connections between sections of the text.