Internet Academy ALP Reading
Assessment Lessons Helpful Tools Rubrics Index Home
Federal Way Public Schools  
Comprehension
Lesson 12		 Summarizing Text
   Objectives/Vocab/Tips > Examples 1 | 2 | 3 > Practice: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 > Self Check

ALPObjective:

The lessons in this section involve reading to learn, to understand new information and to perform tasks. You will be working with skills to help you become an effective reader of informational and task-oriented texts. Summarizing is one of those important skills.

Good news! The most important skill needed to be able to summarize text is the ability to identify the main idea, and you just proved you could do that in the last lesson! You found all kinds of tips to help you be an expert at finding the main idea in the last lesson.

By the time this lesson is finished, you'll have some tools to help you summarize informational texts. In this lesson you will:

  • Review the meaning of a summary,
  • Identify effective summary statements from informational text,
  • Practice writing statements to summarize ideas from informational texts,
  • Score and evaluate your answers.
Vocabulary:

These words will be used in this lesson. They might be quite familiar to you, or you might want some review. For review, just click the Tools tab on the top navigation bar and open Vocabulary.

  • Summary
  • Main Idea
Tips and Tools:

What is a summary?

A summary . . .
  • states the main ideas of a text passage.
  • is clear and concise (brief).
  • focuses only on information (main ideas) from the text.
  • usually follows the sequence of events in the text.
  • does not include opinions of the reader; it avoids interpretation or judgement. Just the facts will do!
  • is written in the writer's own words.

What is NOT included in a summary?

  • Details, illustrations and supporting examples are usually not included in a general summary.
  • The reader's opinion is not included.

What questions can I ask to figure out how to write a summary?

  • What are the important points?
  • Which details are essential to understand these points? (Here is where using a graphic organizer, such as an outline, web or map, guides you in identifying the important points and essential supporting ideas.)
  • What are the connections among the key ideas?

What is important in a summary?

The main skill in summarizing is to figure out what is important or essential in the text.

How do I figure out what the author thinks is important?

Most authors have ways to signal important ideas. Here are some:

  • titles, sub-titles, headings
  • introductory statements
  • topic sentences of each paragraph
  • summary statements at the end of the article
  • photos and captions
  • graphics such as charts and graphs
  • underlining
  • italics
  • repetition
  • use of examples

In the next section, you'll see some examples of how the Tips and Tools just reviewed work to help find identify or explain a summary for an informational passage.

Example 1 >>

 
Assessments Vocabulary

©Internet Academy